When the Trump administration ordered that construction stop last week at Revolution Wind, a giant wind farm off the coast of Rhode Island that was nearly finished, it alluded vaguely to national security concerns but did not offer any further explanation.
It’s becoming a striking pattern.
The order was the third time the Trump administration had revoked permits or halted work on wind farms that had already received federal approval while offering little legal justification for doing so, following actions against wind projects in New York and Idaho. Legal experts say that there is little basis for blocking projects that have already received permits.
The Trump administration has signaled in a court filing that it next plans to rescind federal approvals for yet another wind farm, the Maryland Offshore Wind Project, which had not yet begun construction but would consist of up to 114 wind turbines off the coast of Ocean City, Md. The filing was first reported by WBOC.
These extraordinary moves are creating a crisis for the wind industry, experts said, putting thousands of jobs and billions of dollars of investments at risk. Even if developers are able to challenge the legality of the administration’s actions in court and ultimately win, the delays can drive up costs and inject enough uncertainty to potentially kill wind projects.
“The rationale is shockingly thin,” Michael Gerrard, director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University, said of the Trump administration’s order to stop construction on Revolution Wind.
Yet if the administration’s strategy is to smother the wind industry, it could prove effective, Mr. Gerrard said. “This action is a flashing red light for capital investment in clean energy projects,” he said. “If you’ve gotten all your permits and spent billions of dollars, and even then they can pull the plug, well, who is going to want to put their money up?”
The $6.2 billion Revolution Wind project was 80 percent completed. The developers behind the 65-turbine project had said it was on track to generate enough electricity for more than 350,000 homes in Rhode Island and Connecticut by next spring.
In an Aug. 22 letter to Orsted, the Danish company developing the project, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management said it was “seeking to address concerns related to the protection of national security interests in the United States,” adding that Orsted “may not resume activities” until the administration had reviewed the project.
On Monday, governors and senators from Rhode Island and Connecticut assailed the Trump administration’s actions, saying there was no justification for blocking the project.
“They say there are national security interests here,” said Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut. “Come clean, reveal them, and if you can’t do it in public, give us a briefing in private. They have offered no facts to justify this lawless, reckless decision.”
Yet Mr. Blumenthal noted that the project could still be harmed by a prolonged court battle. “The administration will lose if there is a legal challenge, but in the meantime, consumers will lose,” he said.
The Interior Department did not respond to questions about the agency’s national security concerns and instead echoed President Trump’s longstanding complaints about wind power.
“Americans deserve energy that is affordable, reliable and built to last — not experimental and expensive wind projects that are proven failures,” Aubrie Spady, a spokeswoman for the Interior Department, said, adding that in line with Mr. Trump’s “energy dominance agenda,” the Interior Department was “putting an immediate stop to these costly failures to deliver a stronger energy future and lower costs for American families.”
Wind turbines now provide more than 10 percent of the nation’s electricity and are a major source of power in states like Iowa, Oklahoma and Texas.
Union leaders said on Monday that more than 1,200 jobs could be affected by the stopping of Revolution Wind. The organization that oversees New England’s electric grid also warned that delaying the project could hamper reliability.
“Should this project be interrupted, we will have an elevated risk of rolling blackouts impacting our region,” Katie Dykes, commissioner of Connecticut’s Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, said at a news conference.
Mr. Trump has been a vocal opponent of wind power for years, and on his first day in office, he issued a moratorium on federal approvals for new offshore wind projects. As part of his strategy to combat climate change, President Joseph R. Biden Jr. had encouraged the nascent offshore wind industry. Many analysts had assumed Mr. Trump’s moratorium meant that projects that had already received federal permits could safely proceed.
But in April, the Interior Department suddenly ordered that work be stopped at Empire Wind, a $5 billion wind farm off the coast of Long Island that had received all necessary approvals from the Biden administration and was already being built. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum claimed that the project’s permits had been rushed and that scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration had uncovered flaws in the approval process.
The Interior Department repeatedly declined to share evidence of its claims with either the public or the company developing the project. When NOAA finally released its study on Empire Wind, in response to a Freedom of Information Act request from E&E News, virtually the entire report was redacted.
In May, the administration allowed Empire Wind to proceed, though Trump officials suggested that they had done so only after Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York, a Democrat, agreed to approve new gas pipelines in the state. Ms. Hochul denied that any such deal had been made.
This month, the Interior Department said it was reversing a Biden administration decision to approve the Lava Ridge Wind Project, a large wind farm planned for southern Idaho that was opposed by state lawmakers. The administration said it had discovered “legal deficiencies” in the original approval but did not provide details.
The sudden halt of Revolution Wind last week came as another shock to the industry. Those involved in wind power development said they were baffled by the claim that the project raised national security concerns, as the Interior Department claimed.
Federal agencies and state officials have conducted extensive public reviews of potential offshore wind energy areas near Rhode Island and Massachusetts since 2009. Bill White, who was part of an intergovernmental task force convened by the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, said that representatives of the Defense Department and the Coast Guard had participated in those meetings.
“All the federal agencies were at the table,” said Mr. White, who at the time was working for the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, a state economic development agency. “There were no major security issues that were brought up.”
The military has raised more serious questions about offshore wind projects elsewhere, such as off the coast of Virginia. But fewer concerns were raised in New England. Early discussions about how offshore wind farms might affect radar systems at what is now Otis Air National Guard Base in Cape Cod were soon resolved, Mr. White said. Instead, the biggest worries centered on how wind turbines might affect fisheries in the region, which led officials to limit the areas available for wind development.
Revolution Wind later underwent a separate federal environmental review. The Defense Department recommended some changes, but the government concluded in 2023 that the national security effects of the project would be “negligible and avoidable.”
Elizabeth Klein, who led the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management during the Biden administration, said the agency did have the legal ability to halt projects for national security reasons. But even in those cases, the agency is required to follow a process that includes a written notification describing the basis of its concerns. And the regulator would typically discuss issues with the developer rather than abruptly stop work without warning.
“Even under the most generous interpretation of what is happening here, if there were some issue that arose that suggested a threat, there would be a dialogue between the regulator and the proponent,” Ms. Klein said. “There’s no actual justification to stop the project.”
On Sunday, Lee Zeldin, the Environmental Protection Agency administrator, appeared to contradict claims that opposition to Revolution Wind was primarily about national security.
“The president is not a fan of wind, the economic impacts, the environmental impacts to fisheries,” Mr. Zeldin said on Fox News, adding that the president believes the nation needs more fossil fuels.
It is unclear whether the project can survive an extended bout of uncertainty.
Even before the stop-work order, Orsted said that it needed to raise an additional $9.4 billion to shore up its finances as it attempted to complete both Revolution Wind and Sunrise Wind, another large offshore wind project near Long Island. The company said it was already contending with an industry downturn that had been exacerbated by Mr. Trump’s opposition to wind farms.
On Monday, in the wake of the Trump administration’s order, Orsted’s stock plummeted to a record low. A prolonged halt to work could end up costing the company $25 million per week, analysts at J.P. Morgan estimated.
Equinor, the Norwegian energy giant behind Empire Wind in New York, faced a similar predicament earlier this spring. During the administration’s stop-work order, with nearly a dozen vessels sitting idle and workers on the sideline, Equinor began saying that it might have to abandon the project. While the administration lifted the order after a month, Equinor said the delays and other regulatory changes had cost the company nearly $1 billion.
For now, Orsted has said that it is “evaluating all options” regarding Revolution Wind, including “potential legal proceedings.” The company said it still hoped to complete the project by next year.
On Monday, officials in Connecticut and Rhode Island vowed to see Revolution Wind to completion but said they were unsure what the Trump administration wanted or how to address its concerns.
“I think there’s a deal to be had, and I’ve got to see what the ask is,” said Gov. Ned Lamont, Democrat of Connecticut. “I have no idea what the ask is.”
Karen Zraick contributed reporting.
Brad Plumer is a Times reporter who covers technology and policy efforts to address global warming.
Lisa Friedman is a Times reporter who writes about how governments are addressing climate change and the effects of those policies on communities.
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