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Dems request probe of offshore agency reorganization

July 9, 2026 — Top Democrats on Wednesday called on Congress’ watchdog to investigate the Trump administration’s decision to merge two existing bureaus within the Interior Department to oversee offshore oil and gas, wind and mining.

Senate Energy and Natural Resources ranking member Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) and House Natural Resources ranking member Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) asked the Government Accountability Office to investigate whether a consolidation could undermine beefed up oversight created after the Deepwater Horizon offshore oil disaster in 2010.

The letter — also signed by California Democrats Sen. Alex Padilla and Rep. Luz Rivas — zeroes in on the administration’s decision in April to consolidate the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement to create a new Marine Minerals Administration.

Read the full article at E&E News

Termination of Gulf of Maine leases casts further uncertainty over offshore wind

July 7, 2026 — The termination of two federal leases in the Gulf of Maine present the latest layer of uncertainty for offshore wind projects, once thought to be key to Maine’s energy secure, low-carbon future.

Last month, the U.S. Department of the Interior announced a settlement agreement with Chicago-based Invenergy, which included the termination of offshore wind leases in Maine, California and New York.

“It’s a bad deal for Mainers, at a time when energy is getting more and more expensive, we are spending public dollars to not build energy resources and to not bring electricity prices down,” said Nick Janzen with Maine Conservation Voters.

As part of the agreement, the federal government will reimburse Invenergy up to $765 million, which the company will then reinvest in natural gas-fired power plants and geothermal power generation projects.

The administration of President Donald Trump has cited “national security concerns” about the development of offshore wind as the reason for terminating leases, and stopping work on other projects.

“Rather than waiting years for the projects to materialize, the Trump administration is prioritizing investments in existing infrastructure and functioning supply chains that can create jobs now and deliver economic benefits faster,” an Interior spokesperson said in a statement last week.

Read the full article at Spectrum News

Trump Administration Pays Duke Energy $129 Million to Halt Offshore Wind Farm

June 30, 2026 — The Trump administration on Monday said it would pay Duke Energy $129 million to abandon its plans to build an offshore wind farm off North Carolina.

It was the fourth such deal struck by the administration to throttle the development of offshore wind power, a source of renewable energy that President Trump has disparaged for decades.

Under the agreement, Duke Energy would surrender its lease in federal waters for a wind farm that was planned in the Carolina Long Bay area, roughly 15 to 22 miles off southeastern North Carolina. The project was in the early stages of development and construction had not yet begun.

The government plans to reimburse Duke Energy $129 million, slightly less than the amount that the utility paid for the lease under the Biden administration. Duke Energy would then reinvest that money in other sources of energy favored by the Trump administration, which could include new nuclear and natural gas projects, according to the utility.

Scientists and environmentalists say that offshore wind farms could play a crucial role in the fight against climate change. Unlike burning fossil fuels, wind turbines do not generate any of the greenhouse gases that are dangerously warming the planet. And unlike large-scale solar farms, they do not take up vast amounts of valuable land.

The Trump administration, however, has criticized offshore wind projects as ugly and inefficient.

“President Trump’s vision of unleashing affordable, reliable American energy for our country’s communities and using common sense to put the American people first is being implemented,” Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said in a statement on Monday.

Mr. Burgum also repeated his earlier claims that offshore wind farms threaten national security. Last year, the Interior Department cited those concerns when ordering a halt to the construction of five other wind farms off the East Coast, saying their spinning turbines could interfere with military radar. But several federal judges struck down the stop-work orders, saying they were unpersuaded by the administration’s arguments.

Read the full article at The New York Times

MASSACHUSETTS: In New Bedford, Healey celebrates completion of Vineyard Wind project as the company faces financial disputes

June 26, 2026 — Vineyard Wind 1 the country’s first commercial-scale offshore wind project located off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard, is finally up and running after years of starts and stops — just not at full capacity.

Gov. Maura Healey along with Massachusetts labor and energy leaders celebrated on Wednesday the completion of the project — which concluded construction in March — in New Bedford, touting its benefits while shrugging off the wind development company’s recent financial disputes that have made headlines and threatened the project.

New Bedford’s Marine Commerce Terminal served as the main gathering point for materials that were transported to the site of Vineyard Wind 1, including turbine components that were prepared for installation. The terminal will continue to serve as Vineyard Wind’s site of operations and maintenance. Over 1,500 union members worked under a project labor agreement out of the terminal.

The $4.5 billion project has supported nearly 4,000 jobs since it began, and operations and maintenance are expected to sustain between 80 and 100 jobs per year moving forward. Vineyard Wind will save Massachusetts families and businesses an estimated $1.4 billion on their electricity bills and will generate enough clean, affordable energy to power over 400,000 homes and businesses in New England, Healey said. The project will reduce carbon emissions by over 1.6 million tons per year, according to Vineyard Wind’s website.

Read the full story at the CommonWealth Beacon

VIRGINIA: Virginia Beach renews offshore wind land option with Dominion

June 26, 2026 — As Dominion Energy’s massive Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project off Virginia Beach nears completion, the utility is already laying the groundwork for another offshore venture — a proposed North Carolina wind farm that would rely on 32 acres of Virginia Beach land.

On June 9, the Virginia Beach Development Authority approved a five-year option agreement that would allow Dominion to purchase 32 acres of land the authority owns at Corporate Landing Business Park. The site is critical to the development of CVOW South, Dominion’s proposed offshore wind project in North Carolina, as it would enable a grid interconnection facility and an onshore substation.

The exact purchase price for the land at Corporate Landing hinges on a future appraisal. However, the agreement states that Dominion will pay Virginia Beach at least $200,000 per acre, about $6.4 million. This price is in addition to the $120,000 annual fee Dominion pays for each year of the option.

Read the full article at Virginia Business 

Trump administration to buy back another energy company’s offshore wind leases for 4 more projects

June 18,2026 — The Trump administration said Wednesday it’s buying back another energy company’s U.S. offshore wind leases for four more wind projects, as it seeks to discourage the expansion of wind energy in favor of fossil fuels.

The latest deal brings the total amount spent on these agreements to nearly $2.6 billion.

Chicago-based Invenergy has agreed to end its four offshore wind leases that were very early in development in exchange for reimbursements of lease fees totaling $765 million. The company had already canceled the largest of the four in November, Leading Light Wind off New Jersey’s coast. The others are off the coasts of Maine and California. It will invest that money in natural gas and geothermal ventures that can be built more quickly instead.

By buying back leases, the Republican administration is stopping offshore wind farms that President Donald Trump does not support, and redirecting the money to fossil fuel projects that he does. It adopted this strategy after federal courts thwarted Trump’s efforts to stop offshore wind development through executive action. Trump has frequently talked about his hatred of wind power and calls turbines ugly.

Read the full article at The Associated Press

Trump Administration to Buy Back Four More Offshore Wind Leases

June 18, 2026 — Continuing its strategy of canceling offshore wind projects by buying back the leases in exchange for other energy investments, the Department of the Interior announced its third agreement. The administration has committed nearly $2.6 billion to canceling offshore wind leases even as the strategy is being challenged in court and by regulators.

Invenergy will voluntarily terminate four offshore wind leases it purchased in the past from the government and will redirect the investments toward other domestic energy sources, said the Department of the Interior. It valued the four leases at $765 million for one lease in the New York Bight for a New Jersey wind farm, two for floating offshore wind farms in Maine, and one off the coast of California.

The largest and most advanced of the projects was Leading Light Wind, which had submitted its offshore wind project bid to the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (BPU) in August 2023. It called for up to 2.4 GW, which would have made it the largest in the United States. It would have been more than 40 miles off the coast near Atlantic City, New Jersey, and included a battery storage option that would provide 253 MW of advanced energy storage, but it had yet to submit a Construction and Operations Plan proposal to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.

Read the full article at The Maritime Executive

VIRGINIA: Dominion Energy renews deal with Virginia Beach to buy land for more offshore wind

June 17, 2026 — The utility would use onshore infrastructure at the site for a wind farm off the Outer Banks.

The Virginia Beach Development Authority last week approved an option agreement with Dominion Energy for land that could support a future offshore wind project.

The deal allows the utility to buy about 30 acres at Corporate Landing Business Park within the next five years, which it could use for an onshore substation and grid interconnection point.

It is not related to the 2.6-gigawatt Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project, or CVOW, currently under construction about 27 miles east of the Virginia Beach Oceanfront.

Dominion’s eyeing the land for another possible project about 25 miles south, in North Carolina. The lease area, which the utility calls CVOW South, is located off the Outer Banks coast.

Read the full article the WHRO

NORTH CAROLINA: Dominion to buy land for North Carolina offshore wind project

June 12, 2026 — Dominion Energy will purchase 32 acres in a Virginia Beach business park for an onshore substation and grid connection point to serve a wind farm project planned off the coast of North Carolina.

The land sale in Corporate Landing Business Park was approved at a Development Authority meeting on Tuesday. The authority owns the property and had originally approved Dominion’s purchase option in 2019, but the agreement expired last year. The purchase price will be based on a forthcoming appraisal, but the agreement guarantees it will exceed $6 million, or at least $200,000 per acre.

Read the full article at Yahoo! News

RHODE ISLAND: SouthCoast Wind can lay its cable in RI waters, if it ever gets built

June 11, 2026 — SouthCoast Wind is on hold at the federal level, but Rhode Island regulators are still clearing the way for plans to connect the proposed 141-turbine offshore wind farm to the regional power grid.

The state Coastal Resources Management Council on June 9 approved a request by developer Ocean Winds to run a pair of transmission cables across 20 miles of Rhode Island state waters.

The cables would lead from its wind farm of up to 2,400 megawatts of capacity that would be built 23 miles south of Nantucket and head up the Sakonnet River, through Common Fence Point in Portsmouth and across Mount Hope Bay to a substation at Brayton Point in Somerset, Massachusetts.

Read the full article at the Newport Daily News

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