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Court Denies Motion for Injunction of BOEM’s Review of Maryland COP

December 17, 2025 — A federal court judge in Maryland has denied a request by offshore wind developer US Wind for a preliminary injunction against the federal government in its ongoing fight to save its planned offshore wind project off Ocean City, Maryland. It is the latest twist in the ongoing court battle over Maryland’s first offshore wind project and the broader battle against the Trump administration’s efforts to derail the industry and revoke existing permits.

US Wind, which is a partnership between investment firm Apollo Global Management and Italy’s Renexia, is planning a large wind farm off the Maryland coast that would include 114 wind turbines. The company completed its federal-level reviews, receiving approval of its Construction and Operation Plan in December 2024, but has faced local opposition and the new administration’s declared goal to end offshore wind energy.

The company has found itself caught up in multiple legal battles, including a jurisdictional dispute between the federal and state environmental protection authorities. Ocean City, Maryland, has also sued the federal government, challenging the approval of the wind farm’s plans.

Read the full article at The Maritime Executive

In a Baltimore courtroom, US Wind fights for its life against the Trump administration

December 11, 2025 — Offshore wind company US Wind battled the Trump administration in a Baltimore courtroom Wednesday, defending its Maryland project against the government’s plans to revoke and reconsider a construction permit issued under President Joe Biden (D).

For US Wind, the threat is existential, attorneys said Wednesday. Not only would the government’s revocation of the permit threaten to upend the project along Ocean City’s coast, it also could send the entire company heading toward bankruptcy.

“We’re not there yet,” US Wind CEO Jeff Grybowski said Tuesday outside the U.S. District Courthouse. “We’re in this fight because we made a promise to Maryland that we’re going to build the biggest renewable energy project in the state’s history.”

US Wind’s project is the closest to development along the Delmarva coast. Other companies — Ørsted and Equinor — have leases offshore, but do not have approved construction plans, like US Wind. But having an approved permit did not stop the Trump administration from trying to stop the project — one of a number of offshore wind projects that have been targeted, including some where stop-work orders have stalled construction.

Wednesday’s hearing is the latest twist in a case that began with the parties in entirely different roles. It began in October 2024, when Ocean City challenged the Biden administration’s approval of the permit, called a Construction and Operations Plan, or COP.

The Interior Department initially defended its issuance of the permit. But it reversed course after President Donald Trump (R) took office this year, and in September it asked U.S. District Court Judge Stephanie Gallagher to remand the permit back to the agency for reconsideration, saying it was not properly evaluated under Biden.

Read the full article at Maryland Matters

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

VIRGINIA: Virginia’s 2.6 GW offshore wind project remains on schedule for late-2026 completion despite rising costs

November 13, 2025 — The US wind sector has faced some troubling times as of late, with US President Donald Trump rolling back permits and forcing wind operators to cancel planned projects. Despite that, Virginia’s 2.6 GW offshore wind project remains on track for a late-2026 completion date. The project is being developed by Dominion Energy and has been subject to some problems due to rising costs, but it remains on schedule. Virginia is set to become the home of the US wind sector once the project has been completed and is feeding clean, renewable energy to the millions of Virginia households.

Dominion has stated that the project will be the largest by capacity in the United States

The planned 2.6 GW offshore wind project will easily be the largest by capacity in the United States, once it has been completed. Dominion Energy is an exceedingly large energy company that provides electricity to over 3.6 million customers in Virginia and the Carolinas. Additionally, the firm also provides regulated natural gas services to about 500,000 customers in South Carolina.

Dominion’s quarterly performance for Q3 has been a sight for sore eyes in the American energy sector, boasting operating earnings of $921 million, which is significantly higher than the same period last year. In Q3, Dominion’s regulated electric sales rose 3.3% year over year, marking an important milestone in the company’s future in the United States.

Read the full article at Energies Media

Offshore wind fight lining lawyers’ pockets

November 7, 2025 — With a lawsuit still in court, Ocean City continues to rack up legal bills in its fight against offshore wind, with more than $350,000 spent so far.

City Manager Terry McGean said the city has paid $332,815 in legal fees to its outside legal counsel, the Washington, D.C. firm Marzulla Law, which was hired last year to fight the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s approval of the US Wind project off Maryland’s coast. Another $24,372 has been paid to the city solicitor’s law firm, Ayres, Jenkins, Gordy & Almand.

“These are all paid from the city general fund,” he said.

Last year, the Town of Ocean City announced it had retained Marzulla Law – a firm known for its expertise in environmental and property rights litigation – to file a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and National Marine Fisheries Service, or BOEM. The lawsuit, which lists several co-plaintiffs, challenges the agency’s process for approving the US Wind project, which would involve the construction of 114 wind turbines starting roughly 10 miles off the coast of Ocean City.

MARYLAND: Maryland Democrats back offshore wind project awaiting key court decisions

November 3, 2025 — Top Maryland Democrats are coming out in full force to support a massive offshore wind project currently tied up in federal court.

Baltimore-based US Wind has faced an onslaught of challenges in recent months keeping the company from starting construction on a 114-turbine wind farm off the coast of Ocean City, which is estimated to generate enough power for 718,000 Maryland homes.

In October 2024, the Town of Ocean City and numerous plaintiffs representing the fishing and tourism industry filed a lawsuit against the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), challenging the federal permit approval process for US Wind’s project.

This September, the Trump administration asked the court to vacate the project’s Construction and Operations Plan — approved under the Biden administration — and send it back to BOEM for reevaluation, signaling plans to reverse approvals of the necessary permits.

If the court approves such a move, Ocean City’s lawsuit could become moot.

Read the full article at WYPR

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.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

Feds to judiciary: US Wind permit should be vacated

September 19, 2025 — A top-level Interior Department official is backing up the federal government’s about-face on offshore wind energy by saying its prior approval of a Maryland offshore wind project downplayed potential impacts on ocean rescues, commercial fishing, and environmental concerns – and that the approval process may need to be scrapped and redone.

Adam Suess, an acting Interior Department assistant secretary who oversees the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), said that even after BOEM had approved construction and operations plans for the offshore wind farm by developer US Wind, his agency has a duty to keep checking whether the project really meets the law.

Agency officials under President Joe Biden’s administration “failed to account for all the impacts that the Maryland Offshore Wind Project may cause,” Suess wrote in a Sept. 12 filing, one attached to the same federal lawsuit that the Town of Ocean City is fighting against the Interior Department over offshore wind.

“As part of its ongoing review of the project, the department has initially determined that these impacts may not be sufficiently mitigated and, therefore, the project, as approved, is not preventing interference with other reasonable uses” of the outer continental shelf, the filing states.

While Biden’s Interior Department cleared the project last year, attorneys for the Trump administration now argue that those approvals were flawed. They said BOEM’s approval “was not properly informed by a complete understanding of the impacts from the project,” and that some impacts were “understated or obfuscated.”

Read the full article at OC Today-Dispatch

US Wind: Trump has plans to ‘kill outright offshore wind projects’

September 9, 2025 — US Wind, the Baltimore-based company behind plans to build a wind farm off the Delmarva coast, claims that a federal government plan to rescind permits for its project is a result of “political pressure” from President Donald Trump.

In a counterclaim filed Wednesday in response to a federal lawsuit originally brought by Ocean City, Md., attorneys for US Wind said the Trump administration’s efforts to rescind its permits “are inextricably tied to a wider plan to hinder or kill outright offshore wind projects.”

In the original lawsuit, Ocean City and a coalition of local groups challenged federal permits for offshore construction granted under the Biden administration. They claimed the approvals were part of a “coordinated effort” to bypass transparency and proper public notices to approve major offshore projects “as fast as possible.”

 In all, the competing claims are part of a volley of lawsuits that have plagued the ambitious energy project for more than a year.

Read the full article at Spotlight Delaware