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The Fish and Wildlife Service has lifted its ban on issuing permits for incidental harm to protected eagles while also pursuing enforcement actions — including against operators that reported bird deaths voluntarily.
A federal judge in Massachusetts ruled that construction on Vineyard Wind could proceed.
The offshore wind developer was in the process of completing necessary repairs when the administration issued its stop work order, according to court filings.
The interior secretary and former North Dakota governor used to praise liberty. Now he is betraying it.
The cost crisis in PJM Interconnection has transcended partisan politics.
The decision marks the Trump administration’s second offshore wind defeat this week.
The administration has already lost once in court wielding the same argument against Revolution Wind.
The Trump administration says it has halted all construction on offshore wind projects, citing “national security concerns.”
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum announced the move Monday morning on X: “Due to national security concerns identified by @DeptofWar, @Interior is PAUSING leases for 5 expensive, unreliable, heavily subsidized offshore wind farms!”
There are only five offshore wind projects currently under construction in U.S. waters: Vineyard Wind, Revolution Wind, Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind, Sunrise Wind, and Empire Wind. Burgum confirmed to Fox Business that these were the five projects whose leases have been targeted for termination, and that notices were being sent to the project developers today to halt work.
“The Department of War has come back conclusively that the issues related to these large offshore wind programs create radar interference, create genuine risk for the U.S., particularly related to where they are in proximity to our East Coast population centers,” Burgum told the network’s Maria Bartiromo.
David Schoetz, a spokesperson for Empire Wind's developer Equinor, told me the company is “aware of the stop work order announced by the Department of Interior,” and that the company is “evaluating the order and seeking further information from the federal government.” Schoetz added that we should ”expect more to come” from the company.
This action takes a kernel of truth — that offshore wind can cause interference with radar communication — and blows it up well beyond its apparent implications. Interior has cited reports from the military they claim are classified, so we can’t say what fresh findings forced defense officials to undermine many years of work to ensure that offshore wind development does not impede security or the readiness of U.S. armed forces.
The Trump administration has already lost once in court with a national security argument, when it tried to halt work on Revolution Wind citing these same concerns. The government’s case fell apart after project developer Orsted presented clear evidence that the government had already considered radar issues and found no reason to oppose the project. The timing here is also eyebrow-raising, as the Army Corps of Engineers — a subagency within the military — approved continued construction on Vineyard Wind just three days ago.
It’s also important to remember where this anti-offshore wind strategy came from. In January, I broke news that a coalition of activists fighting against offshore wind had submitted a blueprint to Trump officials laying out potential ways to stop projects, including those already under construction. Among these was a plan to cancel leases by citing national security concerns.
In a press release, the American Clean Power Association took the Trump administration to task for “taking more electricity off the grid while telling thousands of American workers to leave the job site.”
“The Trump Administration’s decision to stop construction of five major energy projects demonstrates that they either don’t understand the affordability crises facing millions of Americans or simply don't care,” the group said. “On the first day of this Administration, the President announced an energy emergency. Over the last year, they worked to create one with electricity prices rising faster under President Trump than any President in recent history."
What comes next will be legal, political and highly dramatic. In the immediate term, it’s likely that after the previous Revolution victory, companies will take the Trump administration to court seeking preliminary injunctions as soon as complaints can be drawn up. Democrats in Congress are almost certainly going to take this action into permitting reform talks, too, after squabbling over offshore wind nearly derailed a House bill revising the National Environmental Policy Act last week.
Heatmap has reached out to all of the offshore wind developers affected, and we’ll update this story if and when we hear back from them.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect comment from Equinor and ACP.
A letter from the Solar Energy Industries Association describes the administration’s “nearly complete moratorium on permitting.”
A major solar energy trade group now says the Trump administration is refusing to do even routine work to permit solar projects on private lands — and that the situation has become so dire for the industry, lawmakers discussing permitting reform in Congress should intervene.
The Solar Energy Industries Association on Thursday published a letter it sent to top congressional leaders of both parties asserting that a July memo from Interior Secretary Doug Burgum mandating “elevated” review for renewables project decisions instead resulted in “a nearly complete moratorium on permitting for any project in which the Department of Interior may play a role, on both federal and private land, no matter how minor.” The letter was signed by more than 140 solar companies, including large players EDF Power Solutions, RES, and VDE Americas.
The letter reinforces a theme underlying much of Heatmap’s coverage since the memo’s release — that the bureaucratic freeze against solar decision-making has stretched far beyond final permits to processes once considered ancillary. It also confirms that the enhanced review has jammed up offices outside Burgum’s purview, such as the Army Corps of Engineers, which oversees wetlands, water crossings, and tree removals, and requires Interior to sign off on actions through the interagency consultation process.
SEIA’s letter asserts that the impacts of Burgum’s memo stretch even to projects on private lands seeking Interior’s assistance to determine whether federally protected species are even present — meaning that regardless of whether endangered animals or flowers are there, companies are now taking on an outsized legal risk by moving forward with any kind of development.
After listing out these impacts in its letter, SEIA asked Congress to pressure Interior into revoking the July memo in its entirety. The trade group added there may be things Interior could do besides revoking the memo that would amount to “reasonable steps” in the “short-term to prevent unnecessary delays in energy development that is currently poised to help meet the growing energy demands of AI and other industries.” SEIA did not elaborate on what those actions would look like in its letter.
“Businesses need certainty in order to continue making investments in the United States to build out much-needed energy projects,” SEIA’s letter reads. “Certainty must include a review process that does not discriminate by energy source.” It concludes: “We urge Congress to keep fairness and certainty at the center of permitting negotiations.”
Notably, the letter arrived after American Clean Power — another major trade group representing renewable energy companies — backed a major GOP-authored permitting bill called the SPEED Act that is moving through the House. Although the bill has some bipartisan support from the most moderate wing of the House Democratic caucus, it has yet to win support from Democrats involved in bipartisan permitting talks, including Representative Scott Peters, who told me he’d back the bill only if Trump were prevented from stalling federal decision-making for renewable energy projects.
SEIA has deliberately set itself apart from ACP in this regard, telling me last week that it was neutral on the legislation as it stands. In a statement released with the letter to Congress, the trade group’s CEO, Abigail Ross Hopper, said that while “the solar industry values the continued bipartisan engagement on permitting reform, the SPEED Act, as passed out of committee, falls short of addressing this core problem: the ongoing permitting moratorium.”
“To be clear, there is no question we need permitting reform,” Hopper stated. “There is an agreement to be reached, and SEIA and our 1,200 member companies will continue our months-long effort to advocate for a deal that ensures equal treatment of all energy sources, because the current status of this blockade is unsustainable.”
In a statement to Heatmap News, Interior spokesperson Alyse Sharpe confirmed the agency is using its “current review process” on “federal resources, permits or consultations” related to solar projects on “federal, state or private lands.” “This policy strengthens accountability, prevents misuse of taxpayer-funded subsidies and upholds our commitment to restoring balance in energy development.” The agency declined to comment on SEIA’s request to Congress, though. “We don’t provide comment on correspondence to Congress regarding Interior issues via the media,” Sharpe said.
