The Trump administration announced on Monday it is “pausing” federal leases for all offshore wind farms under construction along the East Coast, citing “classified” reports about alleged national security threats.
The pause is expected to immediately force work stoppages on piers from New Bedford, Massachusetts, to New London, Connecticut, to Brooklyn, New York, to Portsmouth, Virginia, where hundreds of union workers have been assembling turbine components for offshore installation. If it stands, the order also threatens billions of dollars of private investment in offshore wind infrastructure, and could derail states’ goals to transition quickly to renewable energy.
“It’s really scary,” said Kevin Rose, a union longshoreman who unloads offshore wind parts for Vineyard Wind 1 in New Bedford. “This project changed my life financially. This pause would be really hurtful for our city and our local.”
The Department of the Interior said the new policy applies to five offshore wind farms, including two that are nearly complete: Vineyard Wind 1 and Revolution Wind. Vineyard Wind 1 is already delivering some electricity to New England’s power grid, but it is not clear how this order will affect already completed parts of the project.
When announcing the pause Monday morning, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said that the “prime duty of the United States government is to protect the American people.”
“Today’s action addresses emerging national security risks,” he said, “including the rapid evolution of the relevant adversary technologies, and the vulnerabilities created by large-scale offshore wind projects with proximity near our east coast population centers. The Trump administration will always prioritize the security of the American people.”
The announcement said federal agencies “have long found that the movement of massive turbine blades and the highly reflective towers create radar interference called ‘clutter.’ The clutter caused by offshore wind projects obscures legitimate moving targets and generates false targets in the vicinity of the wind projects.”
Some experts on the offshore wind industry were incredulous.
“It’s a completely meritless argument,” said Kris Ohleth, director of the Special Initiative on Offshore Wind, an independent policy think tank. “Each of the projects goes through an extensive screening with the Department of Defense as part of the NEPA — the National Environmental Policy Act — review.”
The reviews — which were published during the Biden administration as project-specific “records of decision” — found “the impact to radar interference was listed as minor,” Ohleth said. The reviews also require offshore wind developers to employ mitigation measures, Ohleth said, which all five projects are adhering to.
Ohleth, who previously worked for the wind developer Orsted, said companies will likely immediately stop offshore wind construction in response to Burgum’s announcement.
“One can presume that any violation of this is a violation of federal law, and I know the companies take this very seriously,” Ohleth said.
Earlier this year, the Trump administration issued stop work orders to Revolution Wind and Empire Wind. A federal judge later reversed the Revolution Wind order, and the Trump administration lifted its pause on Empire Wind, allowing construction to resume on both projects.
Now, the Trump administration is seeking to halt both projects once again, as part of a blanket ruling on all ongoing offshore wind construction.
“This is by far the most aggressive move towards the sector by stopping all of the projects that are already under construction,” said Elizabeth J. Wilson, a professor of environmental studies at Dartmouth College,
An Orsted spokesperson said the developer is complying with the order and preparing to pause both of its ongoing offshore wind projects, Revolution Wind and Sunrise Wind. Orsted is “taking appropriate steps to suspend related activities in a manner that prevents impacts on health, safety, and the environment,” Meaghan Wims said.
A spokesperson for Dominion Energy, the developer of the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind farm, the largest in the country, said the company has coordinated closely with the military for years throughout planning and construction. Halting construction now, Jeremy Slayton said, “will threaten grid reliability for some of the nation’s most important war fighting, AI, and civilian assets. It will also lead to energy inflation and threaten thousands of jobs.”
Vineyard Wind, the company developing Vineyard Wind 1, and Equinor, the company developing Empire Wind, could not be reached for comment.
New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell said the order will likely force Vineyard Wind to pause construction too, which would cost dozens of union workers their jobs three days before Christmas.
