Trump administration halts all large-scale offshore wind projects under construction in US

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The Division of the Inside announced Monday that it’s pausing the leases for “all large-scale offshore wind initiatives underneath development” in the US attributable to “nationwide safety dangers” recognized in “just lately accomplished categorized studies.”

The motion impacts 5 main offshore wind farms underneath improvement in federal waters off the East Coast: the biggest U.S. challenge, the two.6-GW Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind; the 800-MW Winery Wind 1 offshore Massachussetts; the 700-MW Revolution Wind offshore Rhode Island; and the 2-GW Empire Wind and 924-MW Dawn Wind, each offshore New York. 

Inside mentioned the pause will give it, together with the Protection Division and “different related authorities businesses, time to work with leaseholders and state companions to evaluate the potential of mitigating the nationwide safety dangers posed by these initiatives.”

Inside Secretary Doug Burgum mentioned within the launch that the initiatives posed dangers attributable to “the fast evolution of the related adversary applied sciences, and the vulnerabilities created by large-scale offshore wind initiatives with proximity close to our east coast inhabitants facilities.” 

The discharge went on to say that “huge turbine blades and the extremely reflective towers” create radar interference that “obscures legit transferring targets and generates false targets within the neighborhood of the wind initiatives.”

However in a post on X, Burgum steered components apart from nationwide safety performed into the choice. 

“ONE pure gasoline pipeline provides as a lot vitality as these 5 initiatives COMBINED,” Burgum tweeted, calling offshore wind “costly, unreliable,” and “closely sponsored.”

President Donald Trump is “bringing frequent sense again to vitality coverage & placing safety FIRST!,” he added.

In a Monday launch responding to the announcement, Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind proprietor and developer Dominion Vitality mentioned the challenge is “important for American nationwide safety and assembly Virginia’s dramatically rising vitality wants, the quickest progress in America.”

Virginia’s demand progress “is pushed by the necessity to present dependable energy to a lot of America’s most essential conflict combating installations, the world’s largest warship producer, and the biggest focus of information facilities on the planet in addition to the vanguard of the AI revolution,” Dominion mentioned.

Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind is predicted to come back fully online in late 2026.

Winery Wind 1, a three way partnership from Copenhagen Infrastructure Companions and Avangrid, is slated to take action in mid-2026 after a series of delays. Revolution Wind, an Ørsted and World Infrastructure Companions three way partnership which was beforehand delayed by a stop-work order from the Trump administration, ought to be accomplished within the second half of 2026. Each Dawn Wind, owned by Ørsted, and Empire Wind, owned by Equinor, are anticipated to start working in 2027.

A coalition of conservative teams filed a lawsuit in opposition to the Division of the Inside in 2024 over the event of Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind. The 2 events within the swimsuit mentioned in a Wednesday joint submitting that “DOI plans to conduct a evaluation through which it would contemplate if [a lease] remand can be applicable” and requested {that a} keep within the case be granted till Feb. 2.

The submitting mentioned that counsel for Dominion Vitality consented to the keep however didn’t “concede the propriety” of any evaluation or remand of the challenge’s lease.