The Interior Department abruptly halted the leases for five of the country’s largest proposed offshore wind projects on Monday. This effectively halts all ongoing offshore wind development in the United States.
The moves come as U.S. electricity demand grows for the first time in years, driven largely by data centers needed to fuel the artificial intelligence boom. The Biden administration issued the leases to help meet that demand and as part of its goal of transitioning the country away from fossil fuels and toward more renewable energy sources.
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“The so-called ‘pause’ on offshore wind makes no sense and is an escalation of the administration’s ongoing, baseless attacks on clean energy,” said Pasha Feinberg, offshore wind strategist at the Natural Resources Defense Council, or NRDC. In a statement. “In its continuing efforts to support dwindling fossil fuel interests, the administration is taking more aggressive swings at the clean energy projects this economy needs.”
The five leases temporarily suspended under the order are Vineyard Wind 1, Revolution Wind, CVOW, Sunrise Wind and Empire Wind. It extends across coastal waters from Massachusetts to Virginia, and is expected to create hundreds of new jobs. The New York Times said that the projects With a value of 25 billion dollars It will eliminate enough power generation for service 2.5 million homes And companies. The newspaper pointed out that the matter leaves the United States with only two offshore wind farms, one off the coast of Rhode Island and the other in New York waters.
In a press release announcing the pauses, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum cited “national security risks,” including technological vulnerability and the projects’ proximity to the East Coast. The department also said that unclassified government reports “have long found” that offshore wind projects create radar interference called “clutter.” She said the chaos obscures legitimate moving targets and generates false targets in the vicinity of wind projects.
“Turbines can interfere with radar, which is nothing new at all,” Feinberg told Grist in an email. “All developers are asked to work with them [the Department of Defense] During design and construction to evaluate and avoid or mitigate potential impacts.
Kirk Leibold, national security expert and former commander of the destroyer USS Cole, He told the Associated Press that records show the Department of Defense “He was consulted at every stage of the licensing process.” He said that these projects would actually be a boon to national security as they would diversify the country’s energy supply. Experts say more wind production would also benefit customers.
Can offshore wind survive the Trump administration?
Modern He studies Daymark Energy Advisors found that if contracted wind projects off the coast of New England had been in operation last winter, taxpayers could have saved $400 million. “This extra cost will find its way into utility bills, there’s no doubt about it,” Alexander Heil, chief economist at business think tank The Conference Board, told Grist. “If the ultimate goal is cheap and accessible electricity, this is not the way to get there.”
However, President Donald Trump has long disliked wind energy, Called him recently “Pathetic, very poor, and very expensive to run.” On his first day in office, he temporarily halted new leasing and permitting for wind energy on federal lands. In September, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, or BOEM, issued a stop-work order for the Revolution Wind project, one of the projects mentioned in today’s announcement. But the latest changes are the most aggressive by the administration yet.
“Trump’s obsession with killing offshore wind projects is deranged, irrational, and unjustified,” New York Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer said. In a statement. He said New York “will continue to fight” the administration’s orders to halt work on Empire and other offshore wind projects. “We are prepared to do what is necessary to get these vital electrons flowing as quickly as possible,” Jenny Slayton, a spokeswoman for Dominion Energy, which is developing the offshore wind project in coastal Virginia, told the New York Times in a statement.