Supreme Court decisions usually give the winner a chance to take a victory lap. That didn’t happen when the high court ended a yearslong battle in favor of a Massachusetts offshore wind developer earlier this year.
The company’s response: no comment.
Vineyard Wind’s muted reaction to the Supreme Court decision — which undercut a lawsuit against the project — illustrates how offshore wind companies are trying to navigate a politically tumultuous period under President Donald Trump. As executive orders and regulatory actions designed to halt offshore wind projects have piled up, developers have hunkered down, hoping to avoid the attention of a president who disdains “windmills.” Many have chosen to advance projects in relative silence, staying quiet even as opponents have ratcheted up criticism of what they say are the industry’s negative environmental and economic impacts.
It marks a 180-degree turnaround from their approach under the Biden administration, when wind developers frequently appeared at White House celebrations and publicly celebrated minor project milestones. The shift underscores the lengths the Trump team has gone to stop offshore wind projects, and the massive stakes for companies that have invested billions of dollars in erecting wind turbines along the Eastern Seaboard.
“I like to call it the T. rex strategy of if you don’t move maybe they can’t see you,” said Abby Watson, co-founder and president of the Groundwire Group, a consulting firm that advocates for offshore wind.
Companies that have started construction have already signed binding contracts for vessels and turbine components, committing billions of dollars to projects that had cleared the federal permitting process.
“There’s no backing out of those things at this point without incurring extraordinary costs and so you need to find a way to proceed while managing as many risks as you possibly can in this environment,” Watson said. “The easiest way to manage some of those risks is to avoid getting into a public dispute with the administration.”
That hasn’t always been easy. Trump has repeatedly targeted the industry since taking office. He issued an executive order on his first day as president that called on federal regulators to halt new offshore wind permits and review existing ones. EPA pulled an air quality permit for a planned project in New Jersey, where the developer subsequently moved to cancel a contract to sell the project’s power.
In the most high-profile decision of all, the Interior Department imposed a monthlong stop-work order on Empire Wind 1, a 54-turbine project that had just begun construction off the coast of New York. The move was unusual because it targeted a project that had already received its federal permits. Trump eventually reversed course, but only after administration officials claimed the president had struck a deal with New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, to permit a pair of pipeline projects.
Those decisions are the backdrop for wind companies’ silence. During the Biden era, the companies celebrated all manner of project milestones, like the arrival of offshore construction vessels or the installation of the first turbine foundations.
No more. When Equinor began offshore construction on Empire Wind 1 in March, the only announcement it provided to the public was a safety notice to mariners. Contrast that to last year, when the company held a groundbreaking ceremony for a marine terminal in Brooklyn or when it issued a press release to announce the project had received federal permission to connect to the grid.
Ørsted similarly celebrated the beginning of onshore construction for its Sunrise Wind project under Biden. Now that Trump’s in charge, the Danish wind giant didn’t announce last week that it had begun installing the foundations for the 924-megawatt project, which will create enough electricity to power 600,000 homes in New York. It also finished foundation installation for its 704 MW Revolution Wind project, which will send power to Connecticut and Rhode Island. Ørsted didn’t announce those milestones, either.
“Our focus on project execution for the Northeast portfolio continues,” Ørsted spokesperson Madeline Urbish said in a statement.
‘Keep a low profile’
No company has been tighter lipped than Vineyard Wind, despite a growing focus on the project’s status in the Massachusetts media. The project was supposed to be completed in 2024, but it suffered a setback last year when a turbine blade detached and crashed into the ocean. Federal regulators suspended some construction activities, then lifted the order in the waning days of the Biden administration. Regulators directed Vineyard Wind to remove all the blades that were built at a Canadian factory that was plagued by substandard quality control processes and replace them with new ones built in France.
Vineyard Wind, a joint venture of Avangrid and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, has repeatedly declined to provide construction updates to Massachusetts media outlets.
Updates have largely been limited to earnings calls from Iberdrola, Avangrid’s parent company. At the company’s most recent call, Iberdrola executives said four Vineyard Wind turbines were generating electricity and expressed hope that construction would be finished this year.
“It’s my impression companies are making their own judgments that it is better to focus on execution and keep a low profile, rather than touting milestones,” said Bill White, a former offshore wind executive.
Not every company has stayed quiet. Dominion Energy has been an exception to the industrywide trend of self-imposed silence. Executives at the Virginia-based utility have forcefully made the case for their Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project, the nation’s largest.
Environmental and labor groups allied with the industry continue to make the case for installing turbines in the ocean. In Boston, one local union leader estimated that pile drivers and millwrights had worked 250,000 hours on Vineyard Wind in 2024 alone.
“How do you walk away from that,” said John Dunderdale, business manager at Piledrivers Local 56. He said he understands why wind companies are hesitant to talk, saying their reluctance reflects the wider political climate in a country where law firms and universities are fearful of criticizing Trump out of concern they could be targeted by the government.
“Personally, it makes me feel defeated that we can’t be proud of what we’ve done,” Dunderdale said. “We’re building our legacy. But I know it will all be appreciated in time.”
Staying quiet doesn’t always work.
When Trump lit into a New Jersey offshore wind project on his social media network in January, the project’s developer declined to comment. Two months later, EPA pulled the air quality permit for the project, known as Atlantic Shores, a 1,500-megawatt proposal located 10 miles off the coast. Atlantic Shores moved earlier this month to cancel its contract for supplying electricity to New Jersey.
Equinor sprang into action when Interior Secretary Doug Burgum issued a stop-work order for Empire Wind 1 in April. Company executives called the halt “unlawful,” warned it could hamper U.S. investment and even threatened to cancel the project.
But the Norwegian oil company never took its complaints to court, as many legal observers expected, and was instead able to persuade Trump officials to lift the stop-work order, with help from Hochul, New York City Mayor Eric Adams and Norwegian government officials. When Trump lifted the pause, Equinor officials lavished praise on the president.
Equinor did not issue a statement when it began installing foundations for Empire Wind last week. Instead, Hochul posted a video on X showing her sitting beside Equinor CEO Anders Opedal, looking at a cellphone video of a foundation being installed.
“Offshore wind is happening in the great state of New York. We got it done, right,” Hochul said in the video, as she high-fived Opedal.
One industry official, who was granted anonymity to discuss internal strategy, said the offshore wind sector needs to bolster its appeal among Republicans. Holding groundbreaking ceremonies with Northeastern politicians, the vast majority of whom are Democrats, doesn’t help that cause, they said.
There are signs that the industry is trying to reshape those perceptions under Trump. When developers do speak, it has largely been to tout investments in areas that have bipartisan appeal, like domestic manufacturing. Ørsted, for instance, recently shared a video of a massive new supply vessel that was built in Louisiana.
During Biden’s presidency, executives from Vineyard Wind and Ørsted appeared at events where the president touted climate action and offshore wind.
So it was notable when Iberdrola released a press release last month announcing that its executive chair, Ignacio Galán, had attended a recent state dinner in Qatar with Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani and Trump. The release touted the $50 billion Iberdrola has invested in the U.S. over the last 20 years and included pictures of Galán shaking hands with the emir as Trump stood next to them. Another photo showed Galán posing with Energy Secretary Chris Wright.
When contacted by E&E News about Galán’s trip, a spokesperson for Avangrid, an arm of Iberdrola, replied with a brief statement.
“Thank you for your inquiry,” Craig Gilvarg wrote. “We will decline to comment.”
This story also appears in Energywire.
