Posted on September 8, 2025
The Trump administration plans to cancel permits for a wind energy project off the coast of Massachusetts that would initially power some 400,000 homes, according to court documents filed Wednesday, as the president escalates his war against offshore wind.
The administration has targeted three wind projects in the past two weeks, also moving to revoke permits for a Maryland project and issuing a stop-work order for Revolution Wind, off the coast of Rhode Island and Connecticut, which is already 80 percent built.
“This is a nightmare situation for investors,” said Atin Jain, an energy analyst at BloombergNEF, about the Revolution stop-work order.
The administration is also considering issuing stop-work orders for the four remaining offshore wind projects under construction, according to two people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak with the media.
Last week, President Donald Trump railed against offshore wind in a Cabinet meeting, saying that the administration will not allow “any windmills to go up.” Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in the same meeting that six Cabinet secretaries had formed an interdepartmental coalition on wind, also criticizing wind farms for impacting fisheries and whales.
“This administration’s senseless attacks on new, clean energy just keep coming,” said Kit Kennedy, managing director for the power division at the Natural Resources Defense Council, an advocacy group, in a statement.
“The Trump administration is cutting the feet out from under the fastest growing sources of energy, driving up utility bills and depriving us of the energy we need now more than ever,” she added.
Trump has been a critic of wind power for more than a decade, first publicly attacking plans for a wind farm in Scotland that he argued would ruin the view from a golf course he owned there.
After Trump won the 2024 presidential election, offshore wind developers began canceling or putting projects on hold even before he took office. He issued an executive order on his first day back in office to halt new permits for offshore wind projects.
Energy companies, investors and analysts assumed early in his presidency that projects already under construction or fully permitted would be safe. Companies have more than $100 billion in investments tied up in five projects under construction.
Trump has proved them wrong. In April, the administration halted the Empire Wind project in New York, with the developer running up more than $200 million in costs before New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) cut a deal the following month to lift the stop-work order.
Last month, the administration halted Revolution Wind, citing vague national security concerns.
“It is becoming abundantly clear this administration is using the guise of national security in order to eliminate all the green energy sources it can,” said Kirk Lippold, a retired U.S. Navy commander who is now an advocate for U.S. energy security and renewables.
The governors of Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Massachusetts and New Jersey — all states banking heavily on offshore wind to meet climate targets and rising energy demand — on Monday criticized the Trump administration’s moves to undercut wind projects for wasting money and costing American jobs.
“We are looking for the Trump Administration to uphold all offshore wind permits already granted and allow these projects to be constructed,” the governors said in a joint statement. “Efforts to walk back these commitments jeopardize hardworking families, wasting years of progress and ceding leadership to foreign competitors.”
In the administration’s latest move, Justice Department officials said in court documents filed Wednesday that the administration would cancel a key permit for the New England Wind project by Oct. 10. Avangrid, the main project developer, had yet to start construction and was in the process of negotiating final agreements to sell power to Massachusetts utilities.
Avangrid said last year that the first stage of the project would create more than 4,400 jobs and bring $3 billion in local investment to coastal Massachusetts.
The company, which is owned by Spanish energy company Iberdrola, declined to comment.
Trump may be pursuing the playbook he followed with Empire Wind, halting projects in hopes of striking a deal to help meet the administration’s aims. In that instance, Hochul signaled a greater willingness to consider allowing for new natural gas pipelines to be built in New York.
“Developers and projects are thinking about this broadly, as these projects being seen as dealmakers potentially for the president,” said Hillary Bright, executive director of Turn Forward, an offshore wind industry group.
Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont (D) said he hoped that there was a deal to be made with the administration for Revolution Wind to move forward.
“I think there is a deal to be had, and I have to see what the ask is,” Lamont said. “I have no idea what the ask is. I know what the ask was for Kathy Hochul down in New York.”
