September 23, 2025 — A judge on Monday temporarily lifted the Trump administration’s order to halt construction of Revolution Wind, a massive offshore wind energy project that would power hundreds of thousands of homes in Rhode Island and Connecticut.
Trump administration seeks to revoke SouthCoast Wind approval
September 23, 2025 — The U.S. Department of Justice filed a motion in federal court to revoke federal approval for the SouthCoast Wind project off Massachusetts. Striking at the planned array of 141 turbines is the latest move by the Trump administration to stamp out surviving renewable energy projects approved during the Biden presidency.
The project with a planned 2.4 gigawatt nameplate rating took four years to complete the permitting process and “could now arbitrarily lose approval for its construction and operations plan,” advocates with the BlueGreen Alliance said. “This is the last major federal permit wind projects need before putting turbines into the water and was awarded to SouthCoast Wind after years of careful review.”
The Sept. 18 court maneuver targeting SouthCoast Wind came on the heels of the Trump administration seeking to revoke permits for the US Wind project off Ocean City, Md. SouthCoast was one of the last acts in the Biden administration’s push to move offshore wind projects forward. Its final permit was issued Jan. 17, three days before Trump’s inauguration and his directive that same day to suspended further action on wind power projects.
Judge rules against Trump administration, allows Revolution Wind to resume
September 23, 2025 — A federal judge on Monday ordered that Orsted’s Revolution Wind may resume construction, affirming the company’s arguments that the Trump administration’s halting of the project is unlawful.
The ruling is a major win for the offshore wind industry, which to date has not seen much relief from the courts in addressing the obstacles that the Trump administration has put in place through executive and secretarial orders.
The preliminary injunction, as the name suggests, is a preliminary decision that halts the stop-work order while the case plays out. Still, such an injunction must meet four conditions, including that the plaintiff (Orsted) is likely to succeed on the merits of their argument and suffer irreparable harm without relief, and that an injunction would be in the public interest.
NOAA proposes allowing offshore fish farms in Gulf, Pacific
September 23, 2025 — The Trump administration plans to offer up to 21,000 acres of federal waters off Southern California and Texas for large-scale commercial aquaculture, according to a NOAA proposal for 13 “aquaculture opportunity areas” in the Pacific Ocean and Gulf of Mexico.
The initiative — which could provide a boon to U.S. seafood production while carrying risks for traditional fishing economies and ocean environments — shifts into high gear a Trump administration policy priority embodied in two executive orders, one signed by President Donald Trump during his first term and another this spring.
The Biden administration continued the work of studying possible aquaculture projects, including releasing two draft environmental impact statements. The NOAA documents released Friday are the final environmental reviews.
Judge Says Work on Wind Farm Off Rhode Island Can Proceed, for Now
September 22, 2025 — A federal judge ruled on Monday that the Danish energy company Orsted could restart work on Revolution Wind, a large wind farm off the coast of Rhode Island that is nearly complete but had been abruptly halted last month by the Trump administration.
Judge Royce Lamberth of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia granted a preliminary injunction in a lawsuit that the developers of Revolution Wind had filed challenging the Interior Department’s stop-work order. The injunction means that construction can continue while the case moves forward.
“Revolution Wind will resume impacted construction work as soon as possible, with safety as the top priority,” Orsted, which is developing the wind farm in a joint venture with Skyborn Renewables, said in a statement. Orsted added that it would “continue to seek to work collaboratively with the U.S. administration and other stakeholders toward a prompt resolution” of the lawsuit.
The $6.2 billion Revolution Wind project was 80 percent completed when the Interior Department ordered construction to stop on Aug. 29. The developers behind the 65-turbine project had said it was on track to generate enough electricity for more than 350,000 homes in Rhode Island and Connecticut by next spring.
BOEM Tells Court it Wants to Resume Review of Permits for SouthCoast Wind
September 22, 2025 — The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management formally filed with a federal court on Thursday, September 18, calling for the court to set aside the actions of the Biden administration so that it can restart the environmental review on a Massachusetts offshore wind farm project as part of the Trump administration’s ongoing review of the industry.
The Department of Justice made the filing to the federal court as part of a legal action brought in March 2025 by Nantucket, which was challenging the approval of the Construction and Operation Plan for the proposed 2.4 GW SoutCoast Wind. The Department of the Interior and its BOEM are parties to the suit. They have asked that the case be postponed and the permits, which were granted on January 17, just days before the end of the Biden presidency, undergo further review.
The project, which was approved for up to 141 wind turbines and up to five offshore substation platforms, would be located 20 miles south of Nantucket and approximately 30 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard. It is being developed by Ocean Winds, which is a joint venture between EDP Renewables and Engie. They won the lease for the project originally known as Mayflower Wind at the end of 2018, and the company points out that it spent four years in the review and approval process before the Department of the Interior issued its Record of Decision on December 20.
Trump administration moves to revoke permit for Massachusetts offshore wind project
September 22, 2025 — The Trump administration has moved to block a Massachusetts offshore wind farm, its latest effort to hobble an industry and technology that President Donald Trump has attacked as “ugly” and unreliable compared to fossil fuels such as coal and natural gas.
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, or BOEM, filed a motion in federal court Thursday seeking to take back its approval of the SouthCoast Wind project’s “construction and operations plan.’’ The plan is the last major federal permit the project needs before it can start putting turbines in the water.
SouthCoast Wind, to be built in federal waters about 23 miles south of Nantucket, is expected to construct as many as 141 turbines to power about 840,000 homes in Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
The Interior Department action is the latest by the Trump administration in what critics call an “all-out assault” on the wind energy industry.
First US offshore wind ship arrives for work amid Trump attacks
September 22, 2025 — The first American-made offshore wind installation vessel is ready to work, just as the Trump administration is making moves to shut the industry down.
The Charybdis, a turbine installation ship named for the sea monster from Greek mythology, arrived at Portsmouth Marine Terminal in Virginia last week. The $715 million vessel is set to begin erecting turbines next month at the country’s largest marine wind farm, named the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project.
The Charybdis’ arrival marks a significant logistical and symbolic milestone for the U.S. offshore wind sector at a moment when the industry is under siege from President Donald Trump.
In latest anti-wind action, Trump administration moves to revoke SouthCoast Wind permit
September 22, 2025 — In another attack on offshore wind, the Trump administration is looking to reconsider a key permit for SouthCoast Wind, a planned 141-turbine project off the Massachusetts coast.
The move comes a week after it revoked the same permit for a proposed wind farm near Maryland, and represents the latest escalation in the administration’s attempt to kneecap the offshore wind industry. Already, the multi-agency effort has resulted in frozen federal permits, restrictions on where wind farms can be built, and new reviews of existing regulations to make sure they they “align with America’s energy priorities under President Donald J. Trump.”
On Thursday, the government filed a motion in U.S. District Court in Washington D.C. to take back its approval of the SouthCoast Wind project’s “construction and operations plan,” or COP. The COP is the last major federal permit an offshore wind project needs before it can start putting turbines in the water.
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management had approved SouthCoast’s COP on Jan. 17, 2025, three days before President Trump’s second term began.
“Based on its review to date, BOEM has determined that the COP approval may not have fully complied with the law regulating the use of federal waters over the outer continental shelf,” the government wrote. “That is reason enough to grant a remand.”
In a statement, SouthCoast Wind said the company “intends to vigorously defend our permits in federal court.”
Fishing council recommends rolling back fishing prohibitions in Pacific Ocean
September 18, 2025 — The Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council wants to undo fishing protections in the Pacific Ocean, which opponents say will hurt ocean ecosystems.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order in April to review regulations in U.S. marine monuments in an effort to promote domestic fishing.
As part of that review, WESPAC was asked to make recommendations to the U.S. Secretary of Commerce on what to do within Pacific monuments.
On Tuesday the council voted to endorse a July letter it drafted recommending the allowance of commercial fishing in three Pacific monuments — the Mariana Trench, Rose Atoll and Pāpahānaumokuākea marine national monuments.
The council also voted separately to repeal fishing prohibitions in the Pacific Islands Heritage Marine National Monument, formerly known as the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument.
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