Offshore wind Archives - Page 27 of 246

Fishermen, Environmental Groups Seek Injunction to Stop Empire Wind Project

June 12, 2025 — The following was released by Protect Our Coast New Jersey:

Wrecking Ball in the Water: Fishermen, Processors, and Environmental Groups Seek Injunction to Stop Foreign-Owned “Death Star” Empire Wind Project

Today, a coalition of commercial fishermen, seafood processors, fish buyers, and environmental organizations from New Jersey to Massachusetts filed an emergency motion in U.S. District Court to stop construction of the Empire Wind 1 offshore wind project—citing imminent, irreversible harm to marine life, fishing grounds, the seafood supply chain, and coastal economies.

The motion seeks a preliminary injunction to immediately halt pile driving and construction activities. Plaintiffs argue the project threatens endangered whales, destroys seafloor habitat, and cripples a multi-generational American industry that provides food, jobs, and economic stability across the East Coast.

“To allow Empire Wind to continue construction is to abandon us fishermen and our coastal communities who have, for generations, fed our great country and kept local economies thriving,” said Captain Shawn Machie of the F/V Capt. John in New Bedford, MA. “To turn a blind eye to the marine mammal deaths and destruction of ocean habitats is careless and shows a greed unlike any I’ve ever encountered.”

The lawsuit (Protect Our Coast NJ et al. v. United States of America et al., Case No. 3:25-cv-06890) also challenges the project’s legality under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA), as Empire Wind is controlled by Equinor-a company majority-owned by the Kingdom of Norway. U.S. law bars foreign governments from holding offshore energy leases. The Empire Wind 1 project was fast-tracked and approved under the Biden administration, which granted key permits and lease rights before leaving office, enabling a foreign state-owned company to destroy American waters so Norway can profit, despite widespread warnings from fishermen, scientists, and coastal communities.

“The Fisherman’s Dock Cooperative in Point Pleasant Beach is one of the oldest and most successful fishing cooperatives in the country,” said Gus Lovgren, a generational fisherman and Coop spokesman. “For over 70 years, we’ve passed down our heritage and our commitment to sustainable fishing. But Empire Wind is a wrecking ball. It’s not just destroying our ocean, it’s destroying our future. It just took away our tomorrow.”

The project would install 54 massive turbines and dump more than 3 billion pounds of rock onto the seafloor, a burial-level disruption that threatens vital habitat for scallops, squid, fluke, and other species. The plaintiffs warn that industrial ships like the Thialf, a foreign mega-construction vessel dubbed the “Death Star of the Atlantic” are being brought in to build what would never be allowed in Norway’s own fishing waters.

“The ocean teems with life, especially in summer when marine animals reproduce and care for their young,” said Cindy Zipf, Executive Director of Clean Ocean Action. “Impacts from pile driving are just horrendous–the powerful blasts and concussions disturb, harm, and kill marine life. This destructive impact must be stopped, now.”

The lawsuit also accuses the Department of the Interior of violating federal law when it abruptly lifted a stop-work order on April 16 without addressing the very environmental and safety risks that prompted it.

“There are fewer than 350 North Atlantic right whales left on the planet,” said Amy DiSibio, board member of ACK for Whales. “Empire Wind was sited directly in their migratory path. This project should never have been permitted—and it must be stopped now.”

Last week, a worker was electrocuted during Empire Wind-related construction—raising urgent new concerns about oversight, safety failures, and the reckless pace of development.

The plaintiffs are calling on the court to act now, to protect the ocean, protect the people who depend on it, and stop a foreign government from turning U.S. waters into an industrial dumping ground.

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Media Contacts:
Bruce Afran, Esq., Attorney – bruceafran@aol.com | 609-454-7435
Robin Shaffer, Protect Our Coast New Jersey – protectourcoastnj@gmail.com | 703-861-2809
Cindy Zipf, Clean Ocean Action – zipf@cleanoceanaction.org | 732-996-4613
Amy DiSibio, ACK for Whales – cdisibio@comcast.net | 908-451-6072

List of plaintiffs:

1. Protect Our Coast New Jersey
2. ACK for Whales
3. Clean Ocean Action
4. American Seafood (Stonington & New London, CT)
5. Belford Seafood Co-op (Belford, NJ)
6. Miss Belmar Inc. (Miss Belmar Whale Watch, Belmar, NJ)
7. Fisherman’s Dock Cooperative (Point Pleasant Beach, NJ)
8. Heritage Fisheries (F/V Heritage, Westerly, RI)
9. Long Island Commercial Fishing Association (Montauk, NY)
10. Shawn Machie (F/V Capt. John, New Bedford, MA)
11. Mackenzie Paige LLC (F/V Mackenzie Page, Stonington, CT)
12. NAT. W. Inc. (F/V Tradition, Westerly, RI)
13. David Aripotch, Old Squaw Fisheries, Inc. (F/V Caitlin & Mairead, Montauk, NY)
14. Mayor John Peterson, Jr. (Seaside Park, NJ)
15. Seafreeze Shoreside (North Kingstown, RI)
16. Lund’s Fisheries, Inc. (Cape May, NJ)

References:

https://www.offshore-mag.com/special-reports/news/55296154/reports-crew-member-dies-while-working-on-empire-wind-project

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xa5lp70yWSWeWkIQJqnIOnuWBgipDFvO/view?usp=drive_link

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1f3IAuUTaEF-7vmZxJ1e8K7vbjBCA4puy/view?usp=drive_link

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LG2ctvRnUoTg_5DMVf7uPioQRuj9VIcv/view?usp=drivesdk

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1sLsBE9-73BZyDUzUos98vNbjYeN83Q6j/view?usp=drivesdk

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AgOfr4j_b9_s3cbKiv1Ox9Rk6z3zWvrA/view?usp=drivesdk

AGs: Trump wind memo delays SouthCoast Wind by two years

June 12, 2025 — SouthCoast Wind is now delayed by at least two years as a result of President Donald Trump’s Jan. 20 memo freezing wind project permitting and leasing, according to attorneys general suing the Trump administration. This pushes power delivery to Massachusetts and Rhode Island to 2032 at the earliest.

Michael Brown, CEO of SouthCoast Wind, portends significant challenges for the up to 141-turbine project if the presidential memorandum persists, and warned it’s unlikely the developer will reach a power purchase agreement with the Commonwealth by the June 30 deadline, according to briefs filed this week in federal court as part of the multistate lawsuit.

“The continuation of the Wind Directive is an impediment to SouthCoast Wind” executing its agreement with the state, wrote Elizabeth Mahony, commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources, in a Tuesday filing.

Brown in a separate filing wrote that without resolution, “it may be impossible for the parties to execute the [power purchase agreements],” and the company will be “forced to abandon” negotiations with Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

Mahony said the wind memo, if left in place, will be “an insurmountable challenge to project viability.”

Avangrid’s New England Wind is the other project negotiating contracts in this round of offshore wind solicitations. The parties had a March deadline, but it was extended, in part due to Trump’s memo.

Unlike SouthCoast Wind, New England Wind has all requisite federal permits in place to begin construction. Avangrid on Wednesday declined to comment on the status of negotiations with Massachusetts. A spokesperson for SouthCoast Wind did not respond to a request for comment before publication.

SouthCoast Wind received final federal approval on the last business day of the Biden administration. But it still needs three permits — one from the Environmental Protection Agency, one from NOAA Fisheries, and one from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (which the Corps has already approved, but not issued) — before it can begin construction.

Brown, in his filing, said the federal agencies, which were set to issue their final permit decisions in March, have repeatedly delayed action, citing the wind memorandum.

He said the EPA has been “unresponsive” to the company’s “multiple outreach efforts to check on the status of the final permit and provide assistance,” and that this “substantial, continuous delay” causes “significant harm” to the project.

Due to these delays, SouthCoast Wind has paid tens of millions of dollars in contract termination fees, Brown said.

Read the full article at The New Bedford Light

NEW JERSEY: NJ Commercial Fisheries Sue Trump Admin. For Allowing Wind Farm To Proceed

June 11, 2025 — Last Tuesday, multiple New Jersey fishermen and other groups — including Belford Seafood Co-op in Middletown — sued U.S. Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum for his sudden reversal to allow construction on Empire Wind farm to proceed.

You can read the lawsuit here.

Empire Wind will be a very large (80,000 acres of ocean) wind farm 19 miles off Long Branch, a distance too far out for turbines to be visible from shore. Empire Wind is owned by Norwegian renewable energy company Equinor, which has a contract with New York state to provide electricity to homes on Long Island.

On April 16, Burgum issued a halt-work order to Empire Wind, citing President Trump’s ban on all new offshore wind development, which Trump announced on his very first day in office.

But then just one month later, on May 20, the Trump administration reversed course and lifted the order. Reuters reported last week Equinor was allowed to proceed because of a deal Burgum and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul reached where she agreed to allow canceled plans for a natural gas pipeline in New York state to be revived. In return, Empire Wind could resume work it already started, which includes laying rock on the sea floor.

The June 3 lawsuit seeks to have the stop-work order reinstated. In addition to Belford Seafood Co-op, many familiar Jersey Shore names and commercial fishing companies signed on, including:

Clean Ocean Action (the same group that hosts beach clean-ups every spring); Fisherman’s Dock Cooperative in Point Pleasant Beach; the “Miss Belmar” fishing and sightseeing boat, which docks in Neptune under Captain Alan Shinn; Lund’s Fisheries in Cape May and Seaside Park Mayor John Peterson, a Republican.

Commercial fishermen in New Bedford, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut and Long Island also joined the lawsuit.

The lawsuit sues the United States of America, Interior Secretary Burgum, the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, under acting director Walter Cruickshank, Equinor and the kingdom of Norway.

Read the full article at the Patch

NEW JERSEY: Atlantic Shores is pulling the plug on its wind farm off South Jersey (at least for now)

June 10, 2025 — Atlantic Shores is pulling the plug on its offshore wind farm project in South Jersey, saying President Donald Trump’s war on wind and worsening economics for the fledgling industry have made the project “no longer viable.”

The project, which lost its partner when Shell pulled out, also was stripped of a key environmental permit, without which the project cannot be built.

On June 4, the company filed a petition with the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities asking to terminate the order approving the project.

In a statement from its CEO, Atlantic Shores seemed to indicate it remains open to future offshore wind projects, calling the request “a reset period.”

“This filing marks the closing of a chapter, but not the end for Atlantic Shores,” said Joris Veldhoven. “Offshore wind continues to offer New Jersey a strong value proposition that includes thousands of good paying jobs, stable power prices, and real economic benefits.

“While no ratepayer money or subsidy was spent on Atlantic Shores Project 1, this reset period presents us an opportunity to ensure utility customers continue to get a fair deal for critical infrastructure delivery,” he said. “And with record demand for electricity outpacing supply, one thing’s for sure: New Jersey needs more power generation.

“Atlantic Shores stands ready to deliver high-capacity factor projects that will safeguard American business interests, support energy security, and improve quality of life for millions of Garden State residents,” he said.

Read the full article at the The Press of Atlantic City

Aquinnah Tribe, fishermen file new wind lawsuit

June 9, 2025 — The Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah), along with environmental groups and fishing charter businesses, filed a new lawsuit last week against federal agencies that approved two offshore wind projects 20 nautical miles south of the Island.

Concern over impacts to the marine environment and mammals, especially the North Atlantic right whale, as well as adverse visual and cultural effects in areas of tribal significance from New England Wind 1 and 2 pushed the Tribe to join the lawsuit.

“We joined the lawsuit because this issue is so very important to us. Like all the other plaintiffs, we as individual Tribal Members and our Tribe as a whole are being harmed by these giant wind farms, making an industrial park out of our waters,” the Tribe’s Chairwoman Cheryl Andrews-Maltais said in a statement. “However unlike the other plaintiffs, the negative impacts to us go back as far as time immemorial and as deep as to who we are as Aquinnah Wampanoag People; harming our culture, traditions and spirituality, which connects us to the lands, waters, sky and all living things. Since individually we weren’t being listened to, we hope that maybe now with this lawsuit our collective voices will be heard.”

The federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management announced it approved the two offshore wind projects in July last year, following authorization by the Department of the Interior in a Record of Decision on April 2, 2024. Together, both projects, which will include up to 129 turbines, are projected to have the capacity to produce up to 2,600 megawatts of renewable energy and could power more than 900,000 homes.

But plaintiffs — which include Nantucket-based nonprofit ACK for Whales, Rhode Island-based nonprofit Green Oceans, a group of charter fishing companies, and individual fishermen — argue that government agencies violated several federal laws in authorization of the offshore wind projects. The case was filed in federal district court in Washington D.C.

Read the full article at The Martha’s Vineyard Times

MARYLAND: Maryland Issues Final Permit for Construction of Offshore Wind Farm

June 9, 2025 — Maryland’s Department of the Environment, Air, and Radiation Administration issued the final necessary approval to permit the start of construction of US Wind’s proposed offshore wind farm. The large project has received all the necessary state and local permits, but it still faces local opposition and the potential that the Trump administration could object to the approvals issued at the end of the Biden administration.

US Wind highlights it has been in review and permitting for the past four years with an arduous and thorough process of reviews. It gained approvals in 2024 from Maryland, the National Marine Fisheries Service, and in December 2024 the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management signed off on the Construction and Operation Plan for the full site. Today’s approval from Maryland is for air quality permits for the construction and operation of Maryland Offshore Wind.

US Wind, which is a partnership between investors of funds managed by Apollo Global Management and Italy’s Renexia, acquired its lease for 80,000 acres from the federal government in 2014. It proposes to build in two phases a total project with up to a total of 114 wind turbines generating between 1.8 and 2 GW of power. The project also includes four offshore substation platforms, one meteorological tower, and up to four offshore export cable corridors.

Read the full article at The Maritime Executive

Federal judge raises issues with states’ lawsuit against Trump offshore wind freeze

June 6, 2025 — More than a dozen states, including Massachusetts, have an uphill battle if they’re to succeed in their legal efforts to lift President Donald Trump’s memorandum against offshore wind development.

Attorneys for the states of Massachusetts and New York appeared on Thursday before federal Judge William G. Young, prepared to argue that he should grant a preliminary injunction against the Trump administration’s effective freeze of offshore wind permitting. But the hearing didn’t happen, with the judge “collapsing” the injunction motion.

Young said he needed more specificity from the states on the harm they’ve incurred and the alleged legal violations by federal agencies. The case will be heard again next week, but instead, with a hearing on a motion to dismiss it. (The judge is treating the Trump administration’s filing opposing a preliminary injunction as a motion to dismiss the case.)

“I’m not clear again… that I understand what the specific harm is,” Young said, noting he understands there have been economic impacts on “an important industry.” “But in the context of litigation, I need, I think, some more specificity as to what are the specific harms to specific projects in specific states.”

“It would appear both from the record and from the president’s public statements that he’s opposed as a matter of policy to offshore wind farm energy generation. I think that’s indisputable,” Young continued.

In that vein, Young asked whether the requisite licenses would be issued by the federal government following a court ruling, given the administration’s position on wind. Experts interpreted “licensing” to regard permitting and permits.

Timothy Fox, an analyst at ClearView Energy Partners, said Young’s remarks “strongly suggested that the Trump Administration may prevail.”

“Perhaps most significant,” Fox said by email on Thursday, the judge appeared to declare that ‘the power to license is the power to withhold a license.’”

Young’s points echoed some of those raised by the Trump administration in its May 29 filing opposing the preliminary injunction request.

“Plaintiffs and Intervenor fail to show standing, fail to identify any final agency action on which to base their claims, fail to identify statutory violations on the part of Defendants, disregard the considerable agency discretion and flexibility in the relevant statutory regimes, and otherwise fail to state a claim,” stated the U.S. Department of Justice.

Read the full article at The New Bedford Light

DELAWARE: Offshore wind bill heads to Delaware Senate floor after contentious hearing

June 6, 2025 — Democratic lawmakers faced more than an hour of angry public comments on June 2 from residents who largely slammed their proposal to retroactively strip Sussex County Council of its ability to deny a permit for an offshore wind farm – one of the most controversial energy projects in recent memory.

But in the end, the members of the Senate Environment, Energy and Transportation Committee nonetheless advanced the bill to be considered by the full Senate.

Opponents of the proposal say it’s an example of government overreach, while Democrats and environmental groups supporting the bill say it’s necessary to address Delaware’s energy needs.

The bill is slated for a vote in the State Senate next week, after legislators return to session following the state’s budget markup hearings. Should it pass there, the Delaware House of Representatives would then consider the bill.

Read the full article at Spotlight Delaware

Spanish-owned group part of lawsuit against Trump over U.S. wind energy decision

June 5, 2025 — A new lawsuit filed this week pits a group of fishing businesses and environmental activists against the Trump administration after federal officials reversed course and allowed construction on the Empire Wind offshore project to resume. One of the plaintiffs is owned by a Spanish company.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in New Jersey, opposes the Interior Department’s decision to lift a stop-work order on Equinor’s Empire Wind farm – an offshore project expected to power roughly 500,000 homes by 2027. The administration had paused work in April, citing concerns about environmental impacts and political opposition. However, it reversed course in May.

The plaintiffs include a mix of longtime offshore wind critics: Protect Our Coast New Jersey, Clean Ocean Action, and ACK for Whales. A dozen commercial fishing companies have joined the offshore wind opponents in the lawsuit.

One of the more notable players is Seafreeze Shoreside Inc., a Rhode Island-based seafood company that’s been a fixture in anti-wind coalitions.

Read the full article at The Center Square

NEW JERSEY: NOAA Says Longterm Environmental Impact of New Jersey’s Offshore Wind Projects Not Certain

June 5, 2025 — A recent federal symposium has highlighted significant scientific gaps in the ability to assess the environmental impacts of offshore wind development, raising questions about how New Jersey’s rapidly advancing offshore wind projects could affect local marine ecosystems and coastal communities.

At the “State of the Science” symposium on offshore wind last year, officials from the National Marine Fisheries Service (NOAA Fisheries) presented what they described as serious “constraints” in efforts to build ecosystem models for offshore wind development (OWD).

These findings, disclosed in court filings this week, underscore concerns surrounding current and future offshore wind construction along the New Jersey coast.

Read the full article at Shore News Network