Trump bars offshore wind leases in opening salvo against his energy nemesis

By Benjamin Storrow | 01/21/2025 06:31 AM EST

President Donald Trump partially fulfilled his longtime animosity toward wind power. Some see it as the beginning of a bigger assault.

President Donald Trump signs an executive order.

President Donald Trump signs an executive order at an inauguration event at Capital One Arena in Washington on Monday. Evan Vucci/AP

President Donald Trump ordered a halt to new leases and permits for wind projects on his first day back at the White House.

The order stops short of freezing construction of offshore projects along the East Coast, as sought by wind opponents and feared by the industry’s supporters. But it does direct the Interior secretary to review existing wind permits.

The moves amounted to an extraordinary attack on America’s largest renewable energy industry, both on land and at sea.

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The order singled out an Idaho wind project, saying its permit had been approved “contrary to the public interest.” It issued a moratorium on the 231-turbine development pending a review by the Interior secretary. And it directed the attorney general to seek a stay or postponement of pending litigation until a review of wind permits and leases is complete.

Trump’s animosity toward wind is long-standing, but he made criticism of the industry a feature of his presidential campaign last fall.

“They’re horrible and the most expensive energy there is,” Trump told a beachside rally in New Jersey last summer. “They ruin the environment. They kill the birds. They kill the whales.”

“We are going to make sure,” Trump added, “that that ends on Day 1.”

Many legal experts and industry observers had expected Trump to halt new wind leases sales and permits as part of his Day 1 orders, taking a page from former President Joe Biden’s decision to pause environmental reviews of new liquified natural gas terminals.

Monday’s order did just that, directing the Interior secretary to remove all lands on the outer continental shelf from wind leasing. It also calls for any immediate cessation on issuing new wind permits pending a review by the Agriculture, Energy and Interior secretaries, as well as the EPA administrator.

But it also heaps uncertainty on existing projects. While the order notes “nothing in this withdrawal affects rights under existing leases,” it also directs the Interior secretary to conduct a comprehensive review to determine if “terminating or amending any existing wind energy leases” is warranted.

The stakes are particularly high for offshore wind, as nearly all projects are planned in federal waters.

The Biden administration approved permits for 11 offshore wind projects. Three of those are under construction offshore, two have begun onshore work and one is complete. President Joe Biden’s team also held six offshore wind auctions in the last two years but had found limited interest from developers facing rising costs and mounting political opposition.

In the weeks leading up to the inauguration, Washington was awash with speculation that Trump would take action to halt projects that have secured leases and begun construction. Heatmap reported that anti-wind activists had drafted an order calling for the president to halt work on projects under construction. New Jersey Rep. Jeff Van Drew, a Republican, said he was working with the transition team to pause offshore wind activities for six months as the new administration reviews permits.

Those ambitions were fueled by Trump’s own language.

“You can talk about windmills. They litter our country,” he said during a press conference earlier this month at Mar-a-Lago. “They’re littered all over our country like dropping paper, like dropping garbage in a field. And that’s what happens to them, because in a period of time, they turn to garbage.”

A spokesperson for Van Drew said Monday’s order included language submitted by the New Jersey lawmaker.

“This has been a long, hard-fought battle against powerful, foreign multinational corporations that have shown zero regard for our fishing industry, our environment, our whales, national security, or the American energy consumer,” he said in a statement. “Thankfully, that ends today. I frequently spoke with President Trump about this issue, and he promised to take action. He kept his word.”

Trump’s disdain for wind dates back more than a decade to his attempts to block a 11-turbine wind farm that could be seen from the coastline at his golf course in Scotland.

The president will face significant legal obstacles in trying to overturn exisiting permits for offshore projects, said Vincent DeVito, who served as an energy czar for Ryan Zinke, Trump’s first Interior secretary.

“They are going to have to recalibrate on the hard ‘no,’” DeVito said. “During the first term it was nascent, but now it is something real. It is a real industry, with real jobs and real organization and real investment.”

“When you’re trying to shut down an industry, it cuts people the wrong way and they are going to fight for it,” DeVito added. “The second term on wind, the president has a much harder stance against it, but the industry and the economy and the jobs the industry supports are much more solidified. That’s a clash.”

Windy momentum

Wind is already a major force in America’s power sector, accounting for nearly 11 percent of U.S. electricity generation in 2024, according to preliminary Energy Information Administration figures. Nearly all of that is from onshore projects.

Onshore wind is largely insulated from Trump’s attacks. Only 1.46 gigawatts, or roughly 1 percent of total installed U.S. wind capacity, is on federal land according to a recent federal report.

But the order’s call for a moratorium on activities at the Lava Ridge Wind Project in Idaho showed the industry could still face a significant hurdles on land as well.

The Bureau of Land Management awarded the wind farm a permit despite finding it would alter the view from a national historic site memorializing the internment of thousands of Japanese during World War II. The decision drew fire from Idaho Sen. Jim Risch (R), who had called for Trump to rescind the permit. He later raised the issue with Trump’s nominee for Interior secretary, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, during his confirmation hearing last week.

But if the order represents a serious threat for onshore wind, it represents an existential threat for the offshore sector.

During his confirmation hearing, Burgum said the new administration intended to review existing offshore permits.

“If they make sense and they are already in law, then they will continue,” he said.

When Trump left office in 2021, offshore wind in the U.S. was limited to a pair of pilot projects in Rhode Island and Virginia with seven turbines. But the industry is now on the cusp of a breakthrough in the U.S. The 12-turbine South Fork Wind Farm is sending electricity to New York, and a wave of projects are close behind.

In November, Dominion Energy reported it had installed 78 of 176 turbine foundations on its massive 2,600-megawatt wind farm off Virginia. Ørsted, the Danish wind giant, has installed 80 percent of the foundations for its 704-MW Revolution Wind project serving Connecticut and Rhode Island.

And Vineyard Wind recently completed installation of all 62 of its turbine foundations off Martha’s Vineyard. The 800-MW project, which was delayed in Trump’s first term, was later approved by the Biden administration. It began construction and started generating electricity from a handful of completed turbines last year before a blade detached from a turbine in July and crashed into the ocean. Federal regulators suspended power generation and the installation of the remaining blades pending an investigation. The accident has been attributed to a “manufacturing deviation” at a factory in Canada.

On Friday, regulators announced they had lifted the suspension and approved a plan for Vineyard Wind to remove blades from 22 turbines. Turbines with new blades will be allowed to resume power generation, provided they pass safety tests. One turbine has been in operation since late 2024, according to a Vineyard Wind spokesperson.

Offshore wind supporters seized on a separate Trump decision Monday — his declaration of an energy emergency — to argue that wind could help meet the country’s electricity needs.

“As the administration takes a closer look at offshore wind development, they must keep in mind that this vast domestic resource is instrumental to achieving American energy dominance,” said Hillary Bright, executive director of the pro-wind Turn Forward advocacy group. “One offshore wind project alone can power half-a-million American homes in populated coastal locations — and boost electrical grids already strained by energy-hungry data centers and brutally cold winter weather.”

But wind opponents are hoping Monday’s leasing halt represents an opening salvo in a sustained attack on the wind industry, including existing projects like Vineyard Wind.

“I see it would be warranted and well within executive branch purview to direct a pause on ongoing further construction and to direct the agencies to recommit and reconsider the approval that led to those projects,” said Robert Henneke, executive director and general counsel of the Texas Public Policy Foundation. The conservative nonprofit is representing fishermen who are challenging Vineyard Wind’s environmental permit in court.

“The defects in Vineyard were glossed over by the [Biden] administration and never given full and objective consideration by those agencies,” Henneke said.

Such arguments have been rejected by two federal courts, but Henneke is hopeful that Trump will feel differently. He pointed to a video shared by Trump on Truth Social, his social media platform, featuring Meghan Lapp, a fishing industry representative from Rhode Island who has become a right-wing media darling for her opposition to Vineyard Wind.

Some wind opponents said they would wait for additional action against existing projects, provided it resulted in turbines being taken down.

“If it takes time to be able to untangle it completely, I’m all for it,” said Bonnie Brady, a longtime wind critic who leads the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association.

Wind proponents are likely to sue the Trump administration for any action it takes against the industry. So it is important the administration takes its time to ensure that future decisions survive court challenges, she said.

Brady expressed confidence that Trump would follow through, citing his rally last summer in New Jersey.

“He said this is what he was going to do on Day 1,” she said. “He strikes me as a man of his word.”

This story also appears in Energywire.