EPA officials paid close attention to offshore wind opponents before the Trump administration questioned a state-issued permit for a planned Maryland offshore wind farm last summer, federal documents show.
The records, released by EPA following a public records request from POLITICO’s E&E News, outline how employees in the agency’s mid-Atlantic region met with national officials and rushed to respond to concerns from Maryland Republican Rep. Andy Harris, a prominent opponent of offshore wind.
The Maryland Offshore Wind Project has been in the spotlight since it slipped through the Trump administration’s blockade of offshore wind permits. State regulators issued the developer a final permit in June, leading the Interior Department to say in August that it planned to revoke the project’s federal permit.
“I need a call back asap,” Catherine Libertz, a high-level official in EPA’s mid-Atlantic region, wrote to colleagues on the evening of June 5, 2025, the day before Maryland issued its air quality permit. Libertz is now the deputy regional administrator for the mid-Atlantic region.
