Trump Administration Asks Court to Remand Second Offshore Wind Approval
The Department of Justice filed last week with a U.S. District Court in Maryland, asking the court to remand the approval of the Construction and Operations Plan for the Maryland Offshore Wind for further review by the Department of the Interior. It is the second time in days that the federal government has attempted this tactic in its ongoing efforts to derail the offshore wind energy sector.
The Trump administration, since taking office in 2025, has attempted multiple different tactics to stop the development of offshore wind energy projects, ranging from a review of the permitting process to stop-work orders and buying back leases. It has effectively stopped future development while also going after the five under-construction projects and others, such as Maryland Offshore Wind, which had gained approvals in the closing days of the Biden administration but have not yet reached construction.
Maryland Offshore Wind’s lease dates to a 2014 offshore auction, which was won by US Wind. The company combined two leases into a single project in 2018 and started the review and approval process in 2020. In the summer of 2024, the Department of the Interior and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management granted the final approvals for a plan that calls for up to 114 wind turbines, four offshore substations, four offshore export cables, and a 100-meter-tall meteorological tower placed in the lease area offshore from Ocean City, Maryland. It has not proposed specific turbine models, saying it was considering up to 18 MW models, while it has said in the past the total lease area had the potential for approximately 1.8 GW.
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), an agency within the U.S. Department of the Interior, approved US Wind’s Construction and Operations Plan (COP) for Maryland Offshore Wind on December 3, 2024. The project, however, has continued to be mired in various lawsuits, including a 2024 case filed by the mayor and city council of Ocean City, Maryland.
The Department of the Interior and US Wind are being sued with eight complaints each seeking to block the approval. The District Court has dismissed three counts, the violation of the procedural act, a claim involving migratory birds, and another against the Coastal Zone Management Act, while four are still pending.
The Trump administration has found itself on both sides of the issue in the case of the claim against NOAA Fisheries that cited impacts on marine mammals. NOAA, during the approvals, said the impacts would be temporary and expected normal behavior to return after construction was completed. Department of Justice calls the count in the suit against NOAA “blatantly inaccurate” and says the court should grant a summary judgment on that one count.
It, however, then asserts to the court that the Department of the Interior agrees that there should be a remand of its prior approval of the COP to review its compliance with the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act. It says BOEM found the plan could “have major [adverse] impacts,” including with respect to the “[North Atlantic Right Whale], scenic and visual resources, some commercial fisheries, and scientific research.”
US Wind had protested threats of this action that were made in August by DOJ and asked the court to issue an injunction preventing the federal government from revoking the permit. Judge Stephanie Gallagher, however, ruled US Wind had to wait until the Interior Department took such an action.
The administration used a similar tactic to challenge the nearly completed Revolution Wind project located off Rhode Island. It again said the review and approval process was incomplete and should be remanded to the Department of the Interior. In this case, however, the wind farm has completed installation and is in the final stages of commissioning.
The courts will now have to decide whether the administration can reopen the approvals while the companies argue they spent years in review and permitting before gaining the approvals. The courts also have suits filed by the states challenging the administration’s buying back leases in exchange for the companies making investments in various fossil fuel projects.
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Previous court rulings have gone against the administration. The courts issued injunctions against the stop-work orders. A court also ruled the indefinite review of the approval process violated the Administrative Procedure Act. The courts have also been skeptical of the undefined claims of endangering national security due to elements such as interference with radar signals.
