Posted on February 11, 2026
US President Donald Trump swept back into office on a mission to stop the domestic offshore wind industry in its tracks. That is actually something any idiot could accomplish with the swipe of a pen. All you need to do is yank the federal leases that offshore developers depend on, and — oh, wait. Somebody forgot to tell the president there are certain, um, complications. As a result, five new wind farms along the Atlantic coast are steaming their way towards completion, and now Canada is putting its finger on the scales with a plan to ship offshore wind power from Nova Scotia down to New England.
Trump tried all through 2025 to stop work on wind farms that are already into the construction face, but no dice. On December 8, a federal judge ruled that a president — any president — has the authority to stop issuing new federal leases for offshore wind areas. However, the same judge ruled that summarily stopping work on approved leases is a whole ‘nother kettle of fish, and so is delaying work indefinitely on the pretext that a “review” needs to take place.
Trump clapped back on December 22 with a stop-work order against five wind farms along the Atlantic coast, all of which were well into the construction phase. If this was meant to be a test of the December 8 ruling, mark that down as a fail. By the end of January, a series of judgements against the Trump administration enabled work to continue on all five projects: Vineyard Wind of Massachusetts, Revolution Wind of Rhode Island (with Connecticut as a partner), Sunrise Wind and Empire Wind of New York, and the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project.
Adding to the hurt, Canada is now proposing a connection between offshore wind farms in Nova Scotia and the New England states of the US, and Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey is all for it.
“Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey and the Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston today announced the execution of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to strengthen collaboration on offshore wind development in the North Atlantic,” the governor’s office declared in a press release dated February 5.
“Our relationship with Nova Scotia is special,” explained Governor Healey, referring to the mutual aid rendered by her state to Halifax after the biggest pre-atomic explosion in recorded history rocked the Canadian port city in 1917.
“That spirit of collaboration continues today as we work together to build a strong, resilient offshore wind sector that lowers energy costs and creates good paying jobs along the Atlantic coast,” Healey continued.
Massachusetts Rebels, Yet Again
As the cradle of the American Revolution, Massachusetts also has a special relationship of sorts with kings and tyrants. Accordingly, state energy planners are bypassing Trump’s brain-addled directives in favor of actual fact-based policy making.
“Our agreement with Massachusetts signals to developers that markets for their clean energy are solidifying, giving them even more confidence to invest in our new offshore wind industry,” Houston explained.
“I look forward to sharing this clean energy with Massachusetts, powering economic opportunities for the New England region, and creating thousands of jobs and billions in investment in Nova Scotia,” he added for good measure.
Rebecca Tepper, who is the Massachusetts Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary, also chipped in her two cents. “Offshore wind is critical for our energy security — particularly during cold winters,” Tepper said, underscoring the reliable performance of offshore turbines throughout the year.
The state’s Energy Resources Commissioner, Elizabeth Mahony, further noted that work on the state’s 572-megawatt Vineyard Wind project is almost complete, providing Massachusetts with experience that will support the collaboration with Nova Scotia. Vineyard began producing power in January of 2025, and most of its turbines were already in operation and supplying electricity to the grid by the end of 2025. Mahony listed grid integration, ports, and workforce development among the points of collaboration.
Promises, Promises
For all of Trump’s blustering over the price of eggs, it’s the rising cost of electricity that is helping to sink his poll numbers, and he has only himself to blame. Delaying economical wind and solar projects while propping up creaky old coal power plants has consequences, and ratepayers are paying the price.
The organization Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis took a look at the stop-work order against the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project, for example, and noted that the delay cost the developer, Dominion Energy, $5 million per day until a judge finally stayed the order after three weeks.
Fortunately for Dominion’s ratepayers, that could be the extent of the damage they’ll have to cover, assuming that Trump keeps his hands off the project and the work can continue into its scheduled completion in March. Any further interference could result in cancellation of the project.
As noted by IEEFA, Dominion and the firm Stonepeak have already invested $8.9 billion in the CVOW project, towards a total cost of $11.2 billion when complete. “Those costs will not disappear if the project is cancelled, which would force customers to pay for power they are not getting,” IEEFA points out. The organization also indicated that the $5 million per-day cost of the temporary work stoppage is peanuts compared to a permanent cancellation of the project, which would burden ratepayers with a bill stretching into the hundreds of millions.
The picture is similarly grim for the other four projects. “Delaying these projects only raises costs for electricity consumers and keeps needed new generation capacity off the grid,” IEEFA summarized.
What kind of president makes an extra effort to raise electricity bills for Americans? There are too many answers for that question, so never mind.
Besides, energy bills are the least of our worries. Trump’s violent, murdering private army is invading American communities at will, beating, gassing, arresting, kidnapping, and murdering citizens and non-citizens alike, and plans are in the works for a new $45 billion network of concentration camps. If you have another word for them, drop a comment in the discussion thread.
