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US judge rejects Trump administration’s halt of wind energy permits

December 10, 2025 — A federal judge on Monday struck down an order by U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration to halt all federal approvals for new wind energy projects, saying that agencies’ efforts to implement his directive were unlawful and arbitrary.

Agencies including the U.S. Departments of the Interior and Commerce and the Environmental Protection Agency have been implementing a directive to halt all new approvals needed for both onshore and offshore wind projects pending a review of leasing and permitting practices.

Siding with, a group of 17 Democratic-led states and the District of Columbia, U.S. District Judge Patti Saris in Boston said those agencies had failed to provide reasoned explanations for the actions they took to carry out the directive Trump issued on his first day back in office on January 20.

They could not lawfully under the Administrative Procedure Act indefinitely decline to review applications for permits, added Saris, who was appointed by Democratic President Bill Clinton.

New York Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat whose state led the legal challenge, called the ruling “a big victory in our fight to keep tackling the climate crisis” in a social media post.

Read the full article at Reuters

Federal judge declares Trump wind memo unlawful

December 9, 2025 — ​​A federal judge on Monday ruled in favor of Massachusetts and more than a dozen states that sued the Trump administration in May over President Donald Trump’s day-one offshore wind memo. The directive has frozen permitting since January, pending a comprehensive review by federal agencies.

The states argued the memo is unlawful and has caused significant harm – stymieing domestic investment, jeopardizing states’ abilities to supply enough electricity, and creating an “existential threat” to the industry.

Judge Patti B. Saris seemed to agree with their legal claims: “The State Plaintiffs have produced ample evidence demonstrating that they face ongoing or imminent injuries due to the Wind Order.”

On the flip side, she delivered sharp criticism of the federal government’s arguments and the wind memo itself, writing that it fails to adequately explain or support such a significant change in course from the agencies’ prior permitting practices.

“Whatever level of explanation is required when deviating from longstanding agency practice, this is not it,” Judge Saris wrote.

“The Court concludes that the Wind Order constitutes a final agency action that is arbitrary and capricious and contrary to law,” she wrote. “Accordingly, the Court allows Plaintiffs’ motions… denies the Agency Defendants’ motion…, and declares unlawful and vacates the Wind Order” in its entirety.

Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell in a statement Monday called the ruling a “critical victory.”

Read the full article at The New Bedford Light

Study suggests wind power development would have little impact on Gulf shrimping

December 5, 2025 — A study from the University of Miami found that the installation of wind power infrastructure in the Gulf of Mexico, currently referred to as the Gulf of America by the U.S. government, is unlikely to impact commercial shrimping operations.

The development of offshore wind projects in the United States has been contentious for much of the commercial fishing industry, with fishers claiming turbines in the ocean block them from accessing valued fishing grounds and disrupt the ecosystem. Wind turbines have also posed a problem for NOAA Fisheries, forcing the agency to reconsider how it conducts fisheries surveys as its traditional research vessels can’t navigate too close to the structures.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

MASSACHUSETTS: Seventeen months on, Vineyard Wind blade break investigation isn’t done

December 4, 2025 — Sixty-two towers. Sixty-two nacelles. One-hundred eighty-six blades.

Those are the pieces that comprise Vineyard Wind, an 800-megawatt offshore wind project nearing completion after more than two years of construction.

By The Light’s accounting, the project has two towers and two nacelles left to ship out from the Port of New Bedford. That leaves the blades — an estimated 33 of which, as of last month, have yet to top some turbines, and an unknown number that may still need to be removed and replaced.

As batches of blades have traveled across the seas, to and from New Bedford, France, and Nova Scotia, and been installed on turbines, the U.S. Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement has continued to investigate what caused one of the blades to fail in July 2024.

In January 2025, the Biden administration ordered Vineyard Wind to remove all blades manufactured at a factory in Gaspé, Quebec, where the broken blade was built. BSEE gave Vineyard Wind permission to finish construction using blades from a different factory in Cherbourg, France.

Read the full article at the The New Bedford Light

Trump administration moves to revoke key permit from another offshore wind project proposed near Mass.

December 4, 2025 — More than a year after the Biden administration issued the final permit for a pair of proposed offshore wind projects near Massachusetts, the Trump administration is trying to take it back.

On Tuesday, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management filed a motion in U.S. District Court in Washington D.C. to “remand,” or reconsider, its approval of the construction and operations plan for the projects, New England Wind 1 and 2. The plan is the last major permit an offshore wind project needs to begin construction.

The motion is the latest move by the Trump administration to target the offshore wind industry in the U.S., and it comes just a few weeks after a federal judge in a different, but similar, case ruled that the government could take a second look at the construction and operations plan it approved for SouthCoast Wind, a proposed wind project also near Massachusetts.

The federal government’s motion to reconsider New England Wind’s permit says its prior approval “may have” failed to account for all of the project’s impacts. The filing cited a relatively new interpretation of the federal law known as the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act that changes the criteria to evaluate offshore wind projects.

“Agencies have inherent authority to reconsider past decisions and to revise or replace them,” the government’s lawyers wrote.

But Kate Sinding Daly, senior vice president for law and policy at the Conservation Law Foundation, said this is not how the permitting process is supposed to work.

Read the full article at wbur

BOEM to consider revoking New England Wind 1 approval

December 3, 2025 — The federal agency regulating offshore wind development asked a federal judge on Tuesday to allow it to reconsider a key approval — one the same agency granted just last year — for New England Wind 1, a project planned off the Massachusetts coast.

If the federal government’s request is granted, it would be a blow to the project, which plans to invest in New Bedford and use the city for long-term project operations. If the approval stands, the project could move toward construction once it secures a power purchase agreement with the commonwealth.

This is at least the third time the administration has sought a remand of an offshore wind project approval, the others being for SouthCoast Wind and Maryland’s US Wind. The permits give major infrastructure projects the certainty to secure financing and move forward with construction.

The filing comes more than two months after the federal government signaled it would take such action against this project. The remand request was expected sooner, but the weekslong government shutdown pushed the deadline.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management filed the motion as part of a lawsuit brought in May by offshore wind opposition group ACK for Whales and other parties, including the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head Aquinnah, against BOEM and the Interior Department’s approval of New England Wind 1.

Read the full article at The New Bedford Light

Delaware judge pauses US Wind appeal in wake of new law

December 3, 2025 — A compromise struck in June between Delaware lawmakers is now poised to end litigation challenging a Sussex County decision to block a controversial wind farm planned just off its shores.

The development follows a complex series of events that began a year ago when Sussex County decided to not approve a plan for a land-based substation that the 121-turbine wind farm needed to operate.

Not only did the wind farm developer – US Wind – appeal the decision to a Delaware court, but its Democratic supporters in the state legislature later introduced legislation to override and reverse the Sussex County substation denial.

The legislation led to a late-night standoff during the final hours of the legislative session that had Republicans threatening to block passage of Delaware’s capital budget. Ultimately, they  relented after Democrats agreed to postpone its effective date until early 2026.

On Monday, Delaware Superior Court Judge Mark Conner decided to pause the appeal in advance of the January effective date for the new law.

Conner explicitly pointed to the new law when ordering the pause.

Read the full article at Spotlight Delaware

Europe’s Green Energy Rush Slashed Emissions—and Crippled the Economy

December 2, 2025 — European politicians pitched the continent’s green transition to voters as a win-win: Citizens would benefit from green jobs and cheap, abundant solar and wind energy alongside a sharp reduction in carbon emissions.

Nearly two decades on, the promise has largely proved costly for consumers and damaging for the economy.

Europe has succeeded in slashing carbon emissions more than any other region—by 30% from 2005 levels, compared with a 17% drop for the U.S. But along the way, the rush to renewables has helped drive up electricity prices in much of the continent.

Germany now has the highest domestic electricity prices in the developed world, while the U.K. has the highest industrial electricity rates, according to a basket of 28 major economies analyzed by the International Energy Agency. Italy isn’t far behind. Average electricity prices for heavy industries in the European Union remain roughly twice those in the U.S. and 50% above China. Energy prices have also grown more volatile as the share of renewables increased.

Read the full article at The Wall Street Journal

Revolution Wind work goes on as Trump administration misses deadline

November 25, 2025 — The Trump administration missed last week’s deadline to appeal a federal judge’s decision ordering work to resume on the Revolution Wind project, handing another victory to advocates and local officials who have fought to keep the project afloat.

Construction of the of the 704-megawatt wind farm — which is being staged from the State Pier in New London — was allowed to resume on Sept. 22 after U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth ruled that the federal government lacked justification when it halted work on the project earlier this year.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, which issued the stop-work order, had 60 days to appeal the judge’s decision. That deadline passed on Friday, Nov. 21 with no action taken by the federal government.

“The Trump administration is rightly choosing not to continue to defend the indefensible,” Connecticut Attorney General William Tong said in a statement Monday. “Trump’s erratic actions were the height of arbitrary and capricious government action, and their decision not to pursue this defense is further confirmation of that. This is a major win for Connecticut workers and Connecticut families.”

A BOEM spokesperson declined to comment Monday.

In response to a series of questions seeking clarity on whether the administration was dropping its opposition to Revolution Wind, White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly provided a statement that included no mention of the project or the court ruling.

“In just a few months, President Trump has ended Joe Biden’s war on American energy and restored American energy dominance,” the statement read. “This means prioritizing the most effective and reliable tools to power our country, which includes following through on his promise to ‘Drill, Baby, Drill’ and unleash domestic oil, gas, and nuclear power — supporting thousands of good-paying energy jobs across the country.”

Revolution Wind was already 80% complete when the stop-work order was issued in August. All the foundations for the project’s massive turbines had been driven into the seafloor.

The Trump administration cited unspecified national security concerns as its rationale for halting the project. The project’s proponents said it had undergone extensive reviews during the years-long permitting process, which included approvals from the federal Department of Defense.

Revolution Wind’s developers, which include Danish energy company Ørsted, filed suit challenging the stop-work order in federal court in Washington, D.C.

Read the full article at CT Mirror