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Trump team pauses wind projects, including one off Jersey Shore

December 23, 2025 — The Trump administration announced a pause on five offshore wind farms, including one off the coasts of New Jersey and New York, citing national security concerns.

Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum announced on Dec. 22 that the pause would affect New York’s Empire Wind 1 power project, which will be about 19 miles offshore of Long Branch once complete. The pause also affects Vineyard Wind 1 off Massachusetts, Revolution Wind off Rhode Island and Connecticut, Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind and Sunrise Wind southeast of Long Island.

The rotation of wind turbines and their reflective towers create radar interference called “clutter,” according to the Department of Interior. That interference obscures the radar detection of moving objects and creates the appearance of false objects near the wind farms, according to the department.

The pause will give wind farm developers and state and federal authorities time to address the projects’ risks to national security, Burgum said in a news release.

Read the full article at Asbury Park Press

The Trump administration pauses wind projects off New England, New York and Virginia

December 23, 2025 — The Trump administration said Monday it is pausing leases for five large-scale offshore wind projects under construction along the East Coast due to what it said were national security risks identified by the Pentagon.

The pause, effective immediately, is the latest step the administration has taken to hobble offshore wind in its push against renewable energy sources. It comes two weeks after a federal judge struck down President Donald Trump’s executive order blocking wind energy projects, calling it unlawful.

The administration said the pause will give the Interior Department, which oversees offshore wind, time to work with the Defense Department and other agencies to assess the possible ways to mitigate any security risks posed by the projects.

“The prime duty of the United States government is to protect the American people,” Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said in a statement. “Today’s action addresses emerging national security risks, including the rapid evolution of the relevant adversary technologies, and the vulnerabilities created by large-scale offshore wind projects with proximity near our east coast population centers.”

The statement did not detail the national security risks.

Wind proponents slammed the move, saying it was another blow by the administration against clean energy.

The administration said leases are paused for the Vineyard Wind project under construction in Massachusetts, Revolution Wind in Rhode Island and Connecticut, Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind, and two projects in New York: Sunrise Wind and Empire Wind.

Read the full article at KDLG

Long Island Wind Farms Respond to Federal Suspension

December 23, 2025 — Two of the five offshore wind farms whose leases were paused by the Trump administration on Monday are designed to power Long Island’s electric grid, and wind farm companies here have begun to respond to the news.

The U.S. Department of the Interior said Monday it was “pausing” the leases for 90 days due to what it described as “national security risks identified by the Department of War in recently completed classified reports.”

“Today’s action addresses emerging national security risks, including the rapid evolution of the relevant adversary technologies, and the vulnerabilities created by large-scale offshore wind projects with proximity near our East Coast population centers,” said Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum in a statement Monday. “The Trump administration will always prioritize the security of the American people.”

On Long Island, the Danish wind farm giant Ørsted is in the middle of construction for Sunrise Wind, a 924 megawatt, 84-turbine offshore wind farm about 30 miles off the coast of Montauk. Its transmission cable is slated to come ashore at Smith Point County Park, where it is being installed down William Floyd Parkway and a series of other roads to a substation in Holbrook.

Read the full article at the East End Beacon

 

Judge denies US Wind request to halt Trump administration attacks

December 18, 2025 — A federal judge has declined to issue an injunction that would have protected US Wind from what it says are Trump administration attempts to kill its planned wind farm off Ocean City, for which it already has permits.

U.S. District Judge Stephanie A. Gallagher in Baltimore noted in her decision — handed down Tuesday — that US Wind technically could move forward with constructing its wind farm off of Delmarva.

Even though President Donald Trump’s (R) administration has announced its intention to reevaluate the crucial Construction and Operations Plan (COP) approval issued to US Wind during the waning days of President Joe Biden’s (D) administration, it has not actually revoked the permit, Gallagher wrote in her ruling.

In a previous decision, Gallagher preliminarily rejected a request from the Trump administration to remand the permit back to the U.S. Department of the Interior for reconsideration. Gallagher ruled that the government needed to present more information in order for her to make a ruling. But she allowed the department to carry on with any “internal review” of the permit, as desired.

Read the full article at Maryland Matters

Court Denies Motion for Injunction of BOEM’s Review of Maryland COP

December 17, 2025 — A federal court judge in Maryland has denied a request by offshore wind developer US Wind for a preliminary injunction against the federal government in its ongoing fight to save its planned offshore wind project off Ocean City, Maryland. It is the latest twist in the ongoing court battle over Maryland’s first offshore wind project and the broader battle against the Trump administration’s efforts to derail the industry and revoke existing permits.

US Wind, which is a partnership between investment firm Apollo Global Management and Italy’s Renexia, is planning a large wind farm off the Maryland coast that would include 114 wind turbines. The company completed its federal-level reviews, receiving approval of its Construction and Operation Plan in December 2024, but has faced local opposition and the new administration’s declared goal to end offshore wind energy.

The company has found itself caught up in multiple legal battles, including a jurisdictional dispute between the federal and state environmental protection authorities. Ocean City, Maryland, has also sued the federal government, challenging the approval of the wind farm’s plans.

Read the full article at The Maritime Executive

MASSACHUSSETS: Nantucket reaches deal on Vineyard Wind transparency, response

December 16, 2025 — After months of pressure from local leaders, Nantucket has won new guarantees from Vineyard Wind, securing an agreement that sets clearer rules for communication, public transparency, and emergency response as the offshore wind project progresses toward full operations.

The agreement was formally announced on Dec. 11.

Town leaders first raised the issue publicly in July, when they called for more consistent and transparent information about the project’s daily activities and a more reliable process for handling emergencies at sea. They said the town had struggled to get quick, detailed answers, and they wanted a system that let both officials and residents track what the project was doing.

Select Board member Brooke Mohr, who led the island delegation in the talks, said the push centered on protecting the island’s natural and economic landscape.

Many issues arose in the aftermath of the catastrophic failure of a blade on turbine AW-38 in July 2024, which sent tons of debris crashing into the ocean and then washing up on Nantucket’s south shore and elsewhere throughout the region. Others are related to the light pollution from the turbine field.

“Transparency and predictability are essential to protect our world-renowned coastline, fisheries, night skies, and heritage tourism economy,” she said.

Nantucket is listed as a national historic landmark.

The company is constructing its 62-turbine, 800- megawatt Vineyard Wind 1 project — a joint venture of Avangrid Renewables LLC and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners — in waters starting about 15 miles southwest of Nantucket. The company earlier this month reported the project is progressing and has a current operational capacity of more than 400 megawatts.

Read the full article at Dredge Wire

MARYLAND: Maryland Calls for Offshore Wind Proposals Days After Court Victory

December 15, 2025 — The State of Maryland celebrated the victory in the courts against the Trump administration’s order halting licensing for wind energy projects by launching a new call for Power Purchase Agreements (PPA) from the licensed developers. The state reiterated its commitment to wind energy despite the ongoing struggles with federal regulators.

Maryland published the details of the call open to leaseholders. The state will be conducting an information conference this upcoming week. Proposals are due by January 16.

At the beginning of the week, the 17 states and the District of Columbia, which had filed a complaint in May, won a court order that vacated Donald Trump’s Executive Order halting sales and licensing for the wind power industry. The January order had directed federal agencies to pause their effort and to begin an open-ended review of the process. The administration argues that wind power was unfairly advantaged by the Biden administration and that licensing was rushed without full consideration of the impact of the projects.

A U.S. District Court Judge, however, found that the order was “arbitrary and capricious.” U.S. District Court Judge Patti Saris in Massachusetts found that the Executive Order violated the Administrative Procedures Act that governs how agencies administer programs.

Read the full article at The Maritime Executive

MASSACHUSETTS: Nantucket, Vineyard Wind agree to new transparency and emergency response measures

December 12, 2025 — More than a year after a wind turbine off the coast of Nantucket malfunctioned, causing debris to wash ashore, the town and Vineyard Wind have struck a new agreement to improve transparency.

On Thursday, Nantucket officials announced they secured a series of commitments from the wind project coordinators to improve information sharing, communications, along with emergency planning and response.

Read the full article at WCVB

MASSACHUSETTS: Federal court ruling restart blocked MA offshore wind. ‘No question’

December 11, 2025 — A federal judge has pushed back on the Trump Administration’s pause on wind energy projects carried out by federal agencies, raising new questions for offshore plans near Cape Cod — a ruling that some welcome, but disappointed others.

The finding, released from the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts on Dec. 8, does not cancel President Trump’s original executive memorandum calling for a pause on wind approvals, but it does call for ending federal agencies’ enforcement of his directives.

The Sierra Club Massachusetts is among those applauding the court’s finding. In May, the organization joined nine other environmental groups in a filing arguing that the administration’s “wind directive” was arbitrary and not based in science, lacked a clear purpose and timeline, and jeopardized climate goals and public health.

Read the full article at Cape Cod Times

‘Windmills are a disgrace’: Inside Trump’s war against a growing U.S. industry

December 11, 2025 — The day after President Donald Trump halted construction of a $5 billion wind project off the New York coast, the nation’s top offshore wind developers gathered for a regularly scheduled strategy session in Washington.

The mid-April meeting quickly became heated.

Michael Brown, an outspoken Scotsman who leads the developer Ocean Winds, expressed anger that the industry’s main trade association would not join a blue-state lawsuit challenging Trump’s freeze on offshore wind permitting. American Clean Power Association CEO Jason Grumet pushed back, saying the industry should preserve its political capital at a time when Congress was gearing up to eliminate former President Joe Biden’s clean energy tax credits.

The pair “were shouting at one another,” said one person at the meeting, who like most industry figures quoted in this story was granted anonymity to discuss sensitive business and political matters. Another attendee described it as “definitely contentious.” A third called it one of several confrontations among industry members over how to respond to Trump.

“I can’t even believe that that just happened,” one attendee recalled thinking.

In the end, the clean power group sat out the suit. But Trump’s assaults on wind only accelerated.

Read the full article at Politico