Posted on August 8, 2025
Why Should Delaware Care?
A proposed wind farm off the Delaware-Maryland coast has been at the center of a years-long debate. While the project is slated for development, a key construction permit hangs in the balance and new federal intervention could see it brought to a halt.
The Trump administration’s opposition to offshore wind power is now taking aim at a controversial energy project off the Delmarva coast, potentially putting its future at risk.
Last week, the federal government revealed in court documents that it is reconsidering permits that the Biden administration had previously awarded to US Wind, a Baltimore-based company proposing to build an offshore wind farm within sight of beach communities in Maryland and Delaware.
The court documents are part of lawsuits filed by a local Delaware resident and Ocean City, Md., against the U.S. Department of Interior, challenging certain offshore construction approvals for the project.
“An extension in this case is necessary as Interior intends to reconsider its [Construction and Operations Plan] approval and move in the District of Maryland — the first-filed case — for voluntary remand of that agency action,” wrote Delaware U.S. Attorney Julianne Murray and Adam Gustafson, the acting assistant attorney general for the Environment and Natural Resources Division at the U.S. Department of Justice.
The federal courts would have to sign off on a “voluntary remand,” which is a request to send a case back to an administrative agency for reassessment. If the permit approvals were to be reassessed by the Trump administration, it’s possible they could be denied, dooming the project.
Even if the courts deny that request, the US Wind project is also facing scrutiny from the Trump administration’s Environmental Protection Agency, which is challenging the issuance of Maryland’s permits for the project. A similar appeal is also underway in Delaware.
It puts the US Wind project in the crosshairs of at least three significant legal challenges, even after Delaware state legislators controversially cleared the way for it to proceed over the objections of Sussex County.
The re-evaluation of the permits comes more than six months after the second inauguration of President Donald Trump. On his first day in office, Trump signed an executive order requiring the U.S. Department of Interior and Department of Justice to examine offshore wind projects that had already received federal approvals.
Among those scrutinized was a proposed wind farm off the coast of Long Island. In April, the Department of Interior ordered construction work on the project stop. A month later, the work resumed, with the New York Times reporting that the company behind the project “persuaded the White House to lift its stop-work order.”
For US Wind’s project – which would bring more than 100 turbines off the Delmarva coast – it is not immediately clear whether the Trump administration action could cause a temporary pause, or end the project outright.
In a statement to Spotlight Delaware, the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management said it doesn’t comment on pending litigation, but asserted it has an “unwavering commitment to manage development of U.S. Outer Continental Shelf energy, mineral, and geological resources in an environmentally and economically responsible way.”
In its own statement, a spokeswoman for US Wind said its officials “remain confident that the federal permits we secured after a multi-year and rigorous public review process are legally sound.”
The years-long public review process also included intense local debates in both Maryland and Delaware.
Backers said the wind farm would bring needed electricity to a regional power grid that currently faces a supply crunch. But opponents said the turbines could damage beach economies, particularly the tourism and fishing industries.
One longtime Delaware critic of the wind farm, David Stevenson, said in a statement that he expects the permits to be pulled following another federal review.
“This action is exactly in line with the President’s January Executive Order, and Secretary [Doug] Burgum’s recent order to [the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management],” said Stevenson, who serves as director of energy and environmental policy at the Caesar Rodney Institute, a conservative think tank based in Delaware.
“I expect the review will result in withdrawing the permit,” he said.
Stevenson has led a national effort opposing offshore wind up and down the East Coast through the American Coalition for Ocean Protection and the Ocean Environment Legal Defense Fund. He also served on President Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency Transition Team during his first term.
