Saving Seafood

VIRGINIA: Virginia Beach wind farm spared from Trump order, but future projects could be slowed, experts say

January 27, 2025 — President Donald Trump used his first day in office to slam the brakes on the renewable energy industry, issuing an executive order to temporarily halt federal leasing, permitting and approval of both onshore and offshore wind energy projects.

But a Virginia Beach wind farm already under construction will be spared the immediate effects of the order, said environmental experts and Dominion Energy officials. Still, the experts say other Dominion projects could be delayed.

“It will have an effect on any future leases,” said Eileen Woll, offshore energy program director for the Sierra Club’s Virginia chapter.

Under the Monday executive order, the Trump administration will pause all offshore wind leases in federal waters, in addition to halting permitting and approvals for any wind project, both offshore or onshore. The order notes that, “Nothing in this withdrawal affects rights under existing leases in the withdrawn areas.” That includes the 2.6-gigawatt Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project, which began construction off the coast of Virginia Beach last year.

Read the full article at The Daily Progress

MAINE: Maine Democrat backs partial offshore wind ban

January 24, 2025 — Maine Democrat Jared Golden reintroduced a bill to ban offshore wind in a lobster fishing zone in his state, bucking other Democrats who are seeing red on President Donald Trump’s blanket ban on new wind power leases.

The bill, dubbed the “Northern Fisheries Heritage Protection Act of 2025” would block offshore wind development in Lobster Management Area 1, a fishing area that runs from the Canadian border to the north shore of Cape Cod. Golden introduced the bill with Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-N.J.), who has become one of the most vocal offshore wind opponents in Congress.

Golden said the development of offshore wind in the fishing area threatens the viability of lobster fishing — a bedrock industry for his state.

Read the full article at E&E News

Can Trump really shut down the offshore wind industry?

January 24, 2025 — President Donald Trump campaigned on a promise to shut down the offshore wind industry. Before he even took office, the region saw an impact. Last Friday, a company announced it was abandoning plans to build a factory in Somerset that would’ve supplied undersea cables to American offshore wind farms.

Then, on Monday, during his first day in office, Trump issued an executive order on offshore wind, declaring that his administration wouldn’t permit any new offshore wind farms.

But what does Trump’s executive order mean for the dozens of offshore wind farms that were already under development? Attorney Drew Minciewicz of Black Point Maritime Law discusses that question with The Public’s Radio South Coast Bureau Reporter Ben Berke.

Read the full article at The Public Radio

NEW JERSY: NJ Offshore Wind Farm ‘Hopefully Dead And Gone,’ Trump Says

January 24, 2025 — President Donald Trump is hopeful that the Atlantic Shores South offshore wind farm is “dead and gone” following his executive order that has temporarily halted leasing and permitting for wind farm projects in the country.

“Hopefully the project is dead and gone, as almost all unsightly and environmentally unsound Windmill project should be,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post thanking Rep. Jeff Van Drew for his fighting against the wind farm, which is set to be constructed between Atlantic City and Long Beach Island.

However, Atlantic Shores South already received federal approvals this past October. It’s not yet clear how the executive order will impact the project and it is likely to be challenged in court. A company spokesperson declined to comment.

Read the full article at Patch

‘Relief’ for some, ‘dark moment’ for others: Communities react to Trump’s offshore wind order

January 23, 2025 — Amid a flurry of executive actions on his first day in office, President Donald Trump sought to put the brakes on offshore wind, halting the federal permitting of wind farms and wind-energy leasing of the Outer Continental Shelf.

On Cape Cod and the South Coast, where offshore wind is becoming part of the local economy, supporters and opponents are talking about what the order will mean.

New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell said the city’s position — supporting and courting offshore wind, but also challenging wind-farm locations fishermen view as unacceptable — has been informed by a desire to create jobs in New Bedford. And those jobs could be in jeopardy.

“If this goes as far as it conceivably could, this order — there will be some people who’ll lose their jobs,” he said.

But the mayor of Vineyard Wind’s primary construction port doesn’t oppose every piece of Trump’s order.

Mitchell said some of the lease areas off New York and the Mid-Atlantic warrant review because of their conflicts with commercial fishing.

Read the full article at nhpr

VIRGINIA: What does Trump’s pause on offshore wind mean for Virginia?

January 23, 2025 — One of President Trump’s first executive orders halted all new federal leases and permits for offshore wind projects.

Hampton Roads has bet big on the offshore wind industry.

Dominion Energy is building the nation’s largest offshore wind farm 27 miles off the Virginia Beach Oceanfront, and has two more leases waiting in the wings.

Local economic development officials have also worked hard to attract related businesses to make southeastern Virginia an offshore wind hub, including a South Korean manufacturer of undersea electrical cables.

President Donald Trump’s administration now threatens to put up a roadblock to further growing Virginia’s industry.

“We are going to have a policy where no windmills are being built,” Trump said recently.

On his first day in office this week, Trump signed an executive order that temporarily halts all new federal leases and permits for wind energy.

Read the full article at WHRO

Trump signs executive order halting wind power leases. What it means

January 23, 2025 — President Donald Trump’s executive order to halt new federal offshore wind leasing will likely not stop the ongoing developments off the coast of Massachusetts, but may prevent any new projects.

The executive order suspends the sale of offshore wind leases and the permitting for such projects from all areas of the U.S. outer continental shelf, pending an environmental and economic review.

But the order does not put a stop to wind farms that have already gone through the federal permitting process.

Read the full article at Cape Cod Times

Nantucket community and offshore wind regulator meeting cancelled. Volume of emails cited.

January 23, 2025 — Amid a backdrop of the Trump administration’s attacks on wind and solar power, federal regulators have once again put off a public meeting with Nantucket leaders focused on the Vineyard Wind 1 project, this time indefinitely.

Select Board Chairwoman Brooke Mohr in an email acknowledged that “it’s not hard to imagine” that the changeover from the Biden Administration to the Trump Administration could be at play but emphasized “that is purely speculation on my part.”

The postponed meeting comes at a time that President Trump has ordered a halt to new wind projects pending “immediate review of federal wind leasing and permitting practices.” The moratorium applies only to “any new or renewed wind energy leasing” on the Outer Continental Shelf, but the order also notes that the secretary of the interior, in consultation with the attorney general, will “conduct a comprehensive review of the ecological, economic, and environmental necessity of terminating or amending any existing wind energy leases, identifying any legal bases for such removal, and submit a report with recommendations to the president.”

Read the full article at Cape Cod Times

Golden, Van Drew introduce bill to guarantee critical Gulf of Maine fishing waters are protected from offshore wind development

January 23, 2025 — Congressmen Jared Golden (ME-02) and Jeff Van Drew (NJ-02) today introduced the bipartisan Northern Fisheries Heritage Protection Act of 2025. The bill would prohibit commercial offshore wind energy development in Lobster Management Area 1 (LMA1), which includes nearly 14,000 square miles of nearshore fishing waters from the U.S.-Canada maritime border to the north shore of Cape Cod in Massachusetts.

“Maine’s fishermen deserve to know that waters critical to our historic, high-value industry are protected — not by promises, but by federal law,” Golden said. “Protecting the bountiful natural resources of LMA1 from development will preserve our way of life, local economies and communities. President Trump’s recent Executive Order provides some measure of reprieve, but we need a more permanent solution.”

Earlier this week, President Donald Trump signed an executive order temporarily halting all leasing of federal waters for offshore wind development — a reversal of former President Joseph Biden’s pro-offshore wind regime. The Northern Heritage Fisheries Protection Act of 2025 would take protections for Maine’s fisheries out of the discretion of the chief executive and codify it into law.

“Offshore wind projects are a direct threat to our fisheries, marine ecosystems, and coastal communities,” said Van Drew, the lead Republican co-sponsor of the bill. “They are expensive, destructive and outright unwanted. I am proud to be a co-lead on this bill to permanently protect these vital waters and ensure they are never sacrificed to these reckless developments.”

Read the full article at WAGM

The limits to Trump’s offshore energy plans

January 22, 2025 — Donald Trump has been president for little more than a day, but his vision for the federal coastline is already clear: less wind, more oil.

One of Trump’s first actions after his inauguration Monday was to halt all new leases and permits for offshore wind projects and to direct the incoming Interior secretary to review existing permits to determine if they warrant “terminating or amending.”

He also issued an executive order that aims to revoke an eleventh-hour bid by the Biden administration to block offshore oil and gas drilling within 625 million acres of federal waters, including in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, the Atlantic, the Pacific and most of the Bering Sea in Alaska.

But what Trump can and can’t do offshore could be limited by legal challenges — and political realities.

Questions remain about whether Trump can legally rescind Biden’s withdrawal of federal waters from oil and gas leasing, for example. At least one federal court has found that Congress would have to act to restore areas that a president has withdrawn under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act.

Read the full article at Politico