Saving Seafood

Here’s where Trump has canceled wind farms – and how states are pushing back

July 31, 2026 — President Donald Trump’s opposition to offshore wind farms is well-documented. In the early 2010s, he sued the Scottish government when it gave permission for a company to build turbines in sight of one of his resorts. In public testimony over the years, the president has called wind turbines “monstrosities.” He has fretted about their environmental impact, decried their noise, and lamented their impact on tourism.

He lost his case in Scotland. Now, as U.S. president, he has more leverage.

Over the past year, the Trump administration has gone to great lengths to undo his predecessor’s efforts to establish a wind power industry off the coast of the United States. Since March, he’s struck five agreements with private companies to cancel at least nine offshore wind leases – a strategy that rings of Mr. Trump’s tendency toward dealmaking and that environmental policy analysts say no president has employed before.

Read the full article at The Christian Science Monitor 

States prepare to sue Trump administration over offshore wind energy deals

July 21, 2026 — Multiple states are preparing to sue the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump over a series of deals the government has signed to end offshore wind energy developments, and a group of senators has launched an investigation.

Trump has made opposition to offshore wind energy a key policy in his second term, making multiple attempts to halt any development off the U.S. coast. On day one in office, Trump signed an executive order pausing federal approval for offshore wind projects located on the Outer Continental Shelf. That order was eventually struck down as “unlawful” by a federal judge in December 2025.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

NJ Sues Dept. Of Defense For Halting Wind Farm Safety Reviews

July 20, 2026 — On Thursday, New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport joined 18 other states in suing the U.S. Department of Defense and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, for what Davenport says was Hegseth’s illegal decision to suddenly stop doing safety reviews of wind farms under construction across the country.

No wind farm has been built off New Jersey or New York yet. The only wind farm off New Jersey that’s the closest to starting operations is Empire Wind, which is currently under construction 19 miles off Long Branch.

Empire Wind is about 60 percent complete; they started installing monopiles (the towers that hold the wind blades) into the ocean floor last summer; see these photos of the wind farm site under construction last August.

Read the full article at The Patch

Trump cites national security to stop offshore wind development. Here’s what to know

July 17, 2026 — President Donald Trump’s administration has worked to stop offshore wind development on the grounds that it’s a national security risk since late last year.

It halted work on major projects, and it’s buying back leases, citing national security concerns. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum says a classified report from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth proves offshore wind is a national security threat.

This comes against the backdrop of the Republican president’s hatred of wind turbines and desire to boost fossil fuels for “energy dominance” in the global market. National lab estimates show that turbines installed along the U.S. coasts could provide more than enough power to cover the nation’s annual electricity consumption.

Wind turbines interfere with radar, but that isn’t a new problem. The Pentagon reviews wind farm construction plans and can deem areas off limits. There are upgrades to radar to mitigate turbine impacts.

Read the full article at the Associated Press

Trump budget attacks renewables, boosts ‘energy dominance’

April 3, 2026 — The White House released its fiscal 2027 budget request Friday morning, unveiling plans to continue waging its longstanding war against renewable energy and climate initiatives while boosting support for artificial intelligence and fossil fuels.

The spending blueprint also includes a proposed reorganization for core Interior Department energy offices — the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement.

President Donald Trump’s budget would take a sledgehammer to Biden-era energy and environment programs that the administration has not already decimated, proposing tens of billions of dollars in cuts to everything from electric vehicle chargers to efforts to prosecute certain environmental crimes.

Read the full article at E&E News

Trump’s Budget May Target Climate Programs. Here’s What Still Survives.

April 2, 2026 — President Trump has tried to cut funding for virtually every federal program that addresses climate change. But Congress has been pushing back, sometimes with surprising bipartisan support.

This year, lawmakers quietly saved funding for the government’s popular Energy Star program, which ranks appliances based on energy conservation and cost savings. Bipartisan majorities also salvaged weather forecasting, fisheries and climate research at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and even some international environmental aid.

Mr. Trump’s new proposed budget is expected to be made public on Friday, and climate advocates said they were bracing for steep new cuts to environmental programs. The White House declined to comment on the budget but noted that Mr. Trump had already eliminated his top targets, like federal support for wind, solar and other renewable energy.

Advocates for climate action said their modest success last time had given them some hope of again retaining popular programs in next year’s budget.

Read the full article at The New York Times

RWE is Latest to Stop U.S. Offshore Wind Activities

April 28, 2025 — German renewable energy giant RWE is set to announce that it has stopped its offshore activities in the United States and setting higher requirements for future investments because of the “political developments.” The company follows TotalEnergies, Shell, and BP which previously announced they were backing away from projects in the U.S., and Equinor which last week said it is considering “legal remedies” after Trump’s Department of Energy suspending offshore work on a full-permitted wind farm off New York.

RWE released a manuscript of the speech Dr. Markus Krebber, CEO of RWE, will deliver next week, April 30, during the company’s annual meeting. In the speech, he will highlight the company’s many successes in 2024 and the progress being made on the Sofia wind farm for the UK and with the Danish wind farm Thor. He notes RWE has a combined offshore wind farm capacity currently of 3.3 GW and a further four projects with a capacity of 4.4 GW under construction.

Turning to the U.S. market environment, Krebber will tell shareholders, “We have stopped our offshore activities for the time being,” while the company has also introduced “higher requirements for future investments in the U.S.” He says despite the company’s success with onshore wind, solar energy, and battery storage, “Nevertheless, we remain cautious given the political developments.”

Read the full story at The Maritime Executive

NEW JERSEY: Jersey Shore residents demand more time to review offshore wind project

July 28, 2022 — Jersey Shore residents, environmentalists and business industry advocates remain divided over whether to speed ahead or spend more time reviewing the environmental impacts of a plan to build a 1,100-megawatt offshore wind farm south of Atlantic City.

Ocean Wind 1 ― a project by Denmark-based energy company Ørsted and Newark-based power company Public Service Enterprise Group, or PSEG — could power up to half a million homes in New Jersey once complete, according to Ørsted.

But some environmentalists and coastal residents worry the potential impacts of the wind turbine array could disrupt the migration of critically endangered whales, irreparably harm the local fishing industry and ruin tourists’ views from shore.

During a Tuesday hearing held virtually with the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, which oversees approval of the Ocean Wind 1 project, Seaside Park Mayor John A. Peterson Jr. urged the federal agency to grant an extension to the public response and review period for the project’s environmental impact. Peterson also requested all offshore wind project approvals along New Jersey be delayed until a pilot project was erected and carefully studied.

Ocean Wind 1’s environmental impact statement “is a 1,400-page document and it is far too complex, far too vast an issue to take lightly,” the mayor said during the hearing’s public comment session. “This is an insufficient time period, I believe, for the public and for any and all other interested parties, including but not limited to municipalities, to comment on something of vast ramifications for the future.”

OEM’s consideration of Ocean Wind 1’s impacts failed to account for the cumulative impact of neighboring offshore wind projects along the Jersey Shore, Peterson said. Other projects ― a 2,200-megawatt project by Ørsted called Ocean Wind 2 to the south and two projects by Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind, LLC stretching as far north as Barnegat Light ― are in development or under consideration by federal and state agencies. Atlantic Shores has secured another ocean lease area from BOEM and New York east of Atlantic City.

Read the full article at The Asbury Park Press

BOEM says New York Bight offshore wind environment review will focus on regional impact

July 14, 2022 — The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management announced Wednesday it will move forward with a regional environmental review of six lease areas in the New York Bight.

A February 2022 lease auction by BOEM brought in over $4.3 billion – a record amount for any U.S. offshore renewable or conventional energy lease sale. BOEM officials say this will be the first time the agency has conducted a regional analysis of multiple lease areas for offshore renewable energy.

OEM will publish a Notice of Intent (NOI) to prepare a Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) in the Federal Register on July 15, 2022, which will initiate a 30-day public comment scoping period. Comments gathered during this time will help BOEM identify what it should consider as part of the PEIS.

Read the full story at the National Fisherman

Meet the officials shaping Biden’s offshore energy strategy

July 14, 2022 — A climate activist, mineral economist and former Army Corps regional director are among the officials crafting President Joe Biden’s closely watched strategy for offshore energy, which could shape the direction of renewables and oil drilling for years.

Working in and around the Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, they are helping steer the Biden administration’s approach to offshore oil and gas leasing and its ambitious plans to transition the nation’s oceans toward clean energy at a pivotal moment for both.

Previously focused on managing the oil industry’s access to federal stores of crude and natural gas off the nation’s coasts, BOEM is in the throes of an internal transition to meet this political moment. Its current crew of leaders reflects a unique period in the 11-year-old agency’s history and the varied nature of its growing responsibilities.

Interior and the bureau recently released a draft five-year oil program that could lead to 11 offshore oil auctions in the coming years, potentially jettisoning Biden’s lofty campaign promise to end new leasing. But the Biden administration’s proposal also suggested the possibility of going in a different direction, holding zero new lease sales between 2023 and 2028 in what would be an epic shift for the offshore oil sector.

The new bureau took over the leasing responsibility of offshore energy, while other agencies were crafted to handle the money coming from oil royalties and fees and the day-to-day safety and environmental oversight of offshore drilling.

Last month, BOEM announced that James Bennett, its long-standing chief of the office of renewable programs, has moved to a new, ambiguous role within the renewables arena at BOEM that has led to some speculation in the offshore wind industry that the Interior bureaucrat who built BOEM’s renewables approach may soon leave the agency.

Other relative newcomers to the bureau with critical roles include Marissa Knodel, an adviser in a political liaison position that’s long existed at BOEM and operates out of the public eye. She is one of the BOEM cohorts working directly with the White House to align bureau actions with Biden’s political realities.

Another less visible figure critical in BOEM’s direction is Tommy Beaudreau, the Interior deputy secretary who is second in command at the department under Interior Secretary Deb Haaland.

It was during Beaudreau’s tenure that BOEM first got serious about offshore wind and held its first offshore wind auctions in 2013. But it may be his oil and gas bona fides that matter most as the administration navigates its five-year offshore oil plan. He led BOEM in the years leading up to the last five-year plan and was involved in the consideration of shifting from regionwide oil and gas auctions in the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf-wide sales — a flip often associated with the Trump administration.

Read the full story at E&E News