WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is asking a federal judge to let it reconsider a major federal permit granted for a large offshore wind farm, making it the fourth project the Republican leadership has targeted in recent months.
The Interior Department wants to reconsider its own approval for the “construction and operations plan” for the New England Wind project off of Massachusetts. The plan was approved in 2024 during the Biden administration. The Justice Department said in a filing Tuesday that the court should send the permit back to Interior, because the plan was approved despite major adverse impacts.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat, warned that the administration now risks derailing a legislative effort to speed up permitting reviews for new energy and infrastructure projects. The Senate reached a bipartisan deal in September on a permitting bill, which has not yet been voted on.
“This is how you blow up a permitting deal,” he said in a statement Wednesday.
The Trump administration is using executive orders, agency actions and the courts to try to stop the development of offshore wind, a technology that President Donald Trump has attacked as "ugly" and unreliable compared to fossil fuels such as coal and natural gas. Officials started buying back offshore wind leases after federal judges blocked its efforts to stop construction on five major East Coast projects.
The Interior Department also wants to reconsider its prior approval of the construction and operations plan for Revolution Wind, a wind farm for Rhode Island and Connecticut that has finished construction, and for the Maryland Offshore Wind Project, which has not yet begun construction.
In August, a judge granted the administration's request to reconsider the permit for the stalled New Jersey project Atlantic Shores. That project had been halted soon after Trump returned to office because co-owner Shell walked away from it.
Last year, a federal judge said the Trump administration could reconsider the permit granted to the Massachusetts project SouthCoast Wind days before the president's inauguration to a second term.
Pasha Feinberg, an offshore wind strategist at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said the Trump administration’s attacks on offshore wind are escalating at a time when Americans are struggling with surging utility bills.
“It’s long past time for the Trump administration to realize its war on clean energy is backfiring," Feinberg said.
The National Ocean Industries Association, which represents offshore industries including oil and wind, said it's concerned about the uncertainty that comes with reopening federal approvals for offshore energy projects, particularly those already under construction or in operation.
“The Senate has made meaningful progress on deep reforms that would provide greater certainty for energy projects across the board,” said the association's president, Erik Milito. The administration's actions “underscore why Congress needs to get this done,” he said.
The plans for New England Wind call for up to 129 wind turbines that could supply as much as 2,600 megawatts of clean energy to power more than 900,000 homes each year. The developer, Avangrid, declined to comment Wednesday. Construction has not begun.
The project's federal approval was challenged in court by ACK for Whales, a group of Nantucket, Massachusetts, residents who say they are concerned about the negative impacts of offshore wind development. The lawsuit in District Court for the District of Columbia contends that the federal government failed to comply with numerous statutes.
The federal defendants in the case filed a motion Tuesday stating that remand of the permit is warranted, so Interior could make a new decision. The government also told the court in 2025 it wanted to reconsider New England Wind’s approval.
Interior said in a statement Wednesday that the latest filing complied with a briefing schedule and was not announcing a policy change. Its position on offshore wind has remained consistent throughout this administration, the statement said.
Avangrid built another wind farm, Vineyard Wind, off the coast of Massachusetts in a joint venture with Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners. Construction finished in March, making it the first project to reach this stage during Trump's time in office. Vineyard Wind was one of the projects the administration tried to halt construction on, citing concerns over national security.
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McDermott reported from Providence, R.I.
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