Trump administration pauses all offshore wind projects citing national security risks

Trump freezes US offshore wind projects

The US Interior Department said on Monday it had halted leases for all five offshore wind projects currently under construction, citing unspecified national security concerns and deepening uncertainty over an industry strongly opposed by President Donald Trump.

Trump has repeatedly criticised windmills, particularly their visual impact, and his administration has made several efforts during his second term to curb their expansion.

In its announcement, the Interior Department referred to national security risks associated with the projects, all located off the Atlantic coast, which it said the Pentagon had outlined in “recently completed” classified reports.

The decision comes just weeks after a judge ruled illegal a blanket ban on new offshore wind permits that Trump signed on his first day in office in January.

While the department did not detail the security concerns, it said the Department of Energy had previously flagged potential issues linked to radar interference.

The Interior Department said the pause, which takes effect immediately, would allow time to address the government’s concerns.

Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island criticised the move, saying it “looks more like the kind of vindictive harassment we have come to expect from the Trump administration than anything legitimate.”

The Revolution Wind project off Rhode Island’s coast, being developed by Danish energy company Orsted, is about 80 per cent complete, according to the company’s website.

Whitehouse said on X that the project had been “thoroughly vetted and fully permitted by the federal government, and that review included any potential national security questions.”

Dominion Energy, which is behind a massive wind farm off the Virginia coast, said similary that its project "has been more than ten years in the works, involved close coordination with the military, and is located...so far offshore it does not raise visual impact concerns."

The company said it had been ordered to halt work for 90 days, while warning that stopping the project will "lead to energy inflation and threaten thousands of jobs."

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, seen as close to the fossil fuel industry, expressed concerns for more than just security issues in a post on X, bashing the wind projects as "expensive, unreliable, heavily subsidized offshore wind farms."

"ONE natural gas pipeline supplies as much energy as these 5 projects COMBINED," the former Republican governor wrote.

Wind energy represents about 10 percent of US power production, almost entirely from land-based turbines.

Other projects targeted by Monday's order include the Vineyard Wind project off Massachusetts, and the New York-area Sunrise and Empire projects.

Trump has long complained that windmills ruin views and are expensive. During a trip this summer to one of his UK golf courses, the US president urged Britain to stop subsidizing the "ugly monsters."

In addition to his order attempting to ban new wind farm permits, Trump's administration has also moved to block all federal loans for wind energy.

"We should not be kneecapping America's largest source of renewable power, especially when we need more cheap, homegrown electricity," the Environmental Defense Fund's lead counsel Ted Kelly said in a statement.

New York's Governor Kathy Hochul said on X that she was working with other impacted states "to review every available option to get these projects back on track."

Dominion Energy's stock price closed down around 3.7 percent, while Danish energy giant Orsted -- behind the Revolution Wind project -- was down 11 percent.