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Five times in just over a year, the federal government tried to halt America's offshore wind farms. Five times, it lost in court.
These aren't proposals. They're multibillion-dollar projects already years into construction, some more than half built.
Offshore wind developers lease ocean space from the federal government, then spend years securing permits before construction even begins. On January 20, 2025, the president's first-day executive memo directed federal agencies to halt new wind approvals. That opening move drew a lawsuit from seventeen states and Washington, D.C., who argued it was unlawful.
On December 22, 2025, the Interior Department suspended all five projects at once. It cited national security and gave no specifics.
The targeted projects were Empire Wind and Sunrise Wind off New York, Revolution Wind off Rhode Island and Connecticut, Vineyard Wind off Massachusetts, and Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind. Revolution Wind alone was 87 percent complete, with 58 of 65 turbines already installed and its cables and substations finished, and had been on track to start delivering power within weeks. It was the second stop-work fight for both Empire Wind and Revolution Wind individually, following an earlier round of orders and reversals earlier in 2025. (Canary Media)
Judges called the shutdown orders "arbitrary and capricious." One by one, every project won an injunction and construction resumed.
Judge Royce Lamberth ruled first, on January 12, 2026, ordering Revolution Wind's construction to resume. Empire Wind won its injunction days later, its second court fight in under a year, followed by Sunrise Wind on February 2. By April, the administration's window to appeal had lapsed, and all five projects were legally clear to keep building. (Canary Media)
Having lost repeatedly in court, the administration tried a different approach: offering to simply buy back developers' ocean leases.
In March 2026, officials opened talks with offshore wind developers about reimbursing them for leases they had already purchased from the federal government, an expensive, unusual way to unwind projects that had survived every legal challenge. Around the same time, a separate Massachusetts-area project had its permit sent back for renewed federal review, a softer version of the same pressure campaign. (Bloomberg; Bloomberg)
Revolution Wind sent its first power to the grid in March. Virginia's project wasn't as lucky, its finish date slipped a full year, into 2027.
A Dominion Energy executive overseeing Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind said further slowdowns simply don't make sense given the region's soaring electricity demand from AI data centers and shipbuilding, a rare case of a utility publicly pushing back on the delays' cost. (Canary Media)
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During a July heat wave, offshore wind helped New England cut its reliance on expensive oil-fired power plants nearly in half. The legal fight is not over. It just moved to a slower court.
Compared with a similar heat event in 2025, oil's share of the region's peak power supply fell from roughly 15 percent to 10 percent, with total oil-fired generation down 37 percent, aided also by new hydropower imports and expanded rooftop solar. "Offshore wind is a new American energy sector with a big role to play," said Fara Courtney, an offshore wind policy consultant. Each project's underlying lawsuit against the Interior Department is still working through the courts, a process that could take years. (Canary Media)
Oil's share of New England's peak power supply. Total oil-fired generation down 37 percent year over year.