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Oh Lordy, where to begin? On December 22, the Trump administration urgently dropped a stop-work order on not one but five offshore wind farms spanning five different states on the Atlantic Coast, citing an extremely dire national security emergency. Oh, really? How dire? Clear and present danger dire? Not that kind of dire, as it turns out. Last week, to the surprise of exactly nobody, the administration issued a backhanded admission that no such emergency actually exists.
Trump Tries, Fails, To Stop Offshore Wind
The December 22 order is not the first time Trump has stopped work on an offshore wind project this year only to relent shortly thereafter. Back in April, for example, Trump ordered work to stop on the Empire Wind offshore project, again citing unnamed national security concerns. That project was back on track by May, after Trump reportedly met with New York Governor Kathy Hochul at the White House — though, the discussion reportedly involved state approval for a new gas pipeline, not any looming threat to the safety and security of the New York citizenry.
The president’s stop-work orders have also failed to hold up in court. In August, Trump ordered work to stop on the Revolution Wind project in Connecticut and Rhode Island, citing unnamed national security concerns. In September, Revolution developer Ørsted sued to resume work. A federal judge agreed with Ørsted, and the Trump administration quietly missed a deadline to appeal the decision.
An even bigger defeat was in store for Trump on December 8, when a federal judge ruled that a key part of his January 20 “wind ban” order was null and void. The judge affirmed the president’s authority to stop issuing new offshore leases, but she ruled that part of the January 20 order effectively stopped work on leases already under permit, a result that qualified the order as arbitrary, capricious, and illegal.
That should have put an end to the matter, except that Trump decided to clap back with the new stop-work order on December 22, specifically targeting five projects that are already deep into the construction phase: Vineyard Wind (Massachusetts), Revolution Wind (again), Sunrise Wind (New York), and Empire Wind (again), along with the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project in Virginia.
The Emily Latella Of Offshore Wind Strikes Again
With the notable exception of outgoing Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin, on December 24 the governors of the affected states issued a letter to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, in which they demanded a classified briefing regarding the national security emergency that was supposed to be at the heart of the work stoppage.
Or not, as the case may be. A chunk of the national security emergency has already evaporated into thin air. As reported by the news organization Vineyard Gazette, on December 22 — the same day that the Interior Department issued a press release to publicly announce the five-project work stoppage — the agency’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management slipped a letter to Vineyard Wind, clarifying that the partially completed project can continue generating electricity at its current level. According to Vineyard Gazette, the letter stated that Vineyard Wind may also “‘perform any activities that are necessary to respond to emergency situations and/or to prevent impacts to health, safety, and the environment over the next 90 days and during any subsequent extensions.’”
“As of July, 17 turbines were sending power to the grid and now, according to the state, the project is capable of producing 572 megawatts of its 800-megawatt capacity,” Vineyard Gazette noted.
So, never mind about that national security emergency after all?
We’ll find out more in two weeks or so. On December 23, the leading Virginia utility Dominion Energy sued in federal court to resume work. A hearing was scheduled for December 29, but the judge in the case, the Hon. Jamar Walker, postponed a decision pending review of the Defense Department information that ostensibly sparked the December 22 stop-work order.
That should be … interesting. The Defense Department better have a good excuse for that national security emergency. After all, the turbines are still spinning over at Vineyard Wind without incident, as are those at Rhode Island’s existing Block Island wind farm and the recently commissioned South Fork wind farm off the coast of Long Island in New York.
In the meantime, Governors Ned Lamont of Connecticut, Maura Healey of Massachusetts, Daniel McKee of Rhode Island, and Kathy Hochul of New York are all determined to get to the bottom of the matter. Governor Youngkin is still notably absent from the fray, even though his term in office doesn’t end until January 17.
Dominion, for one, is not waiting around for Youngkin to get his mojo back. In its complaint filed on December 23, Dominion argued that “BOEM’s order sets forth no rational basis, cannot be reconciled with BOEM’s own regulations and prior issued lease terms and approvals, is arbitrary and capricious, is procedurally deficient, violates the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (“OCSLA”), and infringes upon constitutional principles that limit actions by the Executive Branch.”
“Sudden and baseless withdrawal of regulatory approvals by government officials cannot be reconciled with the predictability needed to support the exceptionally large capital investments required for large-scale energy development projects like CVOW critical to domestic energy security. That is true regardless of the source of energy,” Dominion emphasized.
Someone Is Losing The War On Offshore Wind, Bigly
Other US states are also taking matters into their own hands. After all, the wind will keep blowing long after Trump vacates the Oval Office — peacefully, one hopes, this time. Maryland, for example, has a permitted lease area in hand that the Trump administration has been moving to revoke. The December 8 decision in federal court will make the administration’s case more difficult, and Maryland is ready to capitalize. In mid-December, the state’s Department of General Services let word drop that it aims to procure a 20-year power purchase agreement for offshore wind. The move indicates confidence that the administration will be forced to follow through on its approval of the permit for the forthcoming 2.2-gigawatt Maryland Offshore Wind Project.
BOEM approved a Construction and Operations Plan for the project in December of 2024. A draft version of the DGS procurement solicitation stipulates that bidders must hold a BOEM lease “more than ten miles off the coast of the State.” The existing Maryland lease meets that bar by a whisker. BOEM describes the area as about 8.7 nautical miles off the coast of Maryland, which converts to 10.012 land miles.
January 16 is reportedly the deadline for submitting bids, so stay tuned for more on that.
Photo (cropped): National security emergency or not, the Vineyard Wind offshore wind project will keep pumping out the clean kilowatts, at least for the time being (courtesy of Vineyard Wind).
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