Revolution Wind allowed to resume construction

Another attempt by the federal government to step on the toes of the offshore wind industry faltered after a judge Monday granted Revolution Wind, an offshore wind farm located 12 miles off the coast of Aquinnah, a stay and preliminary injunction, which allows the project to restart construction. It represents a legal reversal of a suspension order issued by federal officials just last month.

Royce C. Lamberth, a federal judge in the District Court for D.C., wrote in court documents after the matter was heard in court Monday: “Revolution Wind has demonstrated likelihood of success on the merits of its underlying claims, it is likely to suffer irreparable harm in the absence of an injunction, the balance of the equities is in its favor, and maintaining the status quo by granting the injunction is in the public interest.”

He ruled against the Dec. 22 federal suspension that would’ve paused any progress on the project for at least three months, and even threatened cancellation of the project.

But the federal suspension and subsequent court decision are only reminders that the offshore wind industry potentially teeters on the edge of extinction, allowed to continue, despite yearslong approval processes, only by the mercy of the current federal government.

This awkward two-step dance — stop-work orders and suspensions, and then stays and preliminary injunctions — between offshore wind developers and President Donald Trump’s administration seems to be almost choreographed by now. The federal government halts construction, and developers take the matter to the courts, which often allow them to restart. There’s always the risk that the federal government comes back after them.

Progress of the Revolution Wind project alone has moved forward and backward in stops and starts for the past six months. The developers were issued a stay and preliminary injunction by the same judge in late September, after Revolution Wind was singled out and issued a stop-work order by the federal government in late August.

In the latest assault on offshore wind, the administration targeted five projects, and suspensions were issued just before Christmas on two fully permitted projects visible off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard — Vineyard Wind 1, which was already largely up and running, and Revolution Wind, which was last reported to be 87 percent complete, as well as three other projects under construction off the East Coast — Sunrise Wind, Empire Wind, and Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind. Based on the orders issued by Matthew Giacona, acting director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), all of the projects are or were likely to be suspended for at least 90 days.

But now, because the Revolution Wind developer took the matter to court, construction can resume on the project as litigation continues on in the background. Officials from Ørsted, part owner of the Revolution Wind project, said in a statement Monday that they plan to “restart impacted activities immediately while the underlying lawsuit challenging the August 22, 2025, and Dec. 22, 2025, BOEM director’s orders progresses.”

“Revolution Wind will determine how best it may be possible to work with the U.S. administration to achieve an expeditious and durable resolution,” the statement also said. A spokesperson for Ørsted wouldn’t further comment beyond the statement.

The pause is attributed to publicly undisclosed national security concerns identified in classified reports by the Department of Defense (DoD), which the administration now refers to as the Department of War (DoW). And the suspensions not only force stakeholders to battle the federal government in court, but also further delay benefits promised to the Island, including jobs and funds from Vineyard Wind 1 for onshore energy projects.

Lamberth was able to read the classified reports, and Katie Segal, senior director of offshore wind at the Environmental League of Massachusetts, who previously worked for the federal government in the U.S. Department of Energy’s Grid Deployment Office, said the judge wasn’t persuaded by the national security concerns.

In her work for the federal government, Segal said, approval processes for offshore wind farms are stringent. “Developers were in touch with the Department of Defense the whole time, and they agreed on mitigation actions,” she said.

“The developers and the federal government and everyone else knows that [national security concerns] could be a thing, but it’s not as big of a deal as what the administration is now making it out to be, and steps have already been taken to mitigate and communicate about ongoing changes in the landscape,” she added. “That does not mean the project should not continue.”

The national security concerns in the classified reports aren’t spelled out, but a press release from the Department of the Interior (DoI), which oversees BOEM, references previous unclassified reports that say the movement of the turbine blades and reflective towers cause radar interference called “clutter,” which can obscure objects and create false ones within the wind projects. Also available in court documents is a declaration from Dale Marks, deputy undersecretary of war for acquisition and sustainment, on the classified reports, but the document is heavily redacted.

Fred Khedouri, who is the owner of Martha Rose Fisheries, a member of the zoning board of appeals, and a Land Bank commissioner in Chilmark, previously worked in the White House under Ronald Reagan as associate director for natural resources, energy, and science at the Office of Management and Budget. He told The Times that national security is the hardest thing to challenge. That’s made harder when the developers don’t actually know the concerns, as listed in classified reports by the DoD, that they have to challenge.

Jacob Tyner, deputy assistant secretary for Land and Minerals Management within the Interior, also submitted to the court a declaration on Jan. 8 that said, “Given the foreign control over the Revolution Wind project, BOEM is coordinating with DoW on whether access to the classified material with a secret designation by developers is possible, and/or whether certain information can be declassified, or an unclassified summary could be created. Regardless of the 90-day time frame in the suspension letter, BOEM plans to review and analyze any mitigation measures proposed by DoW and/or developers as expeditiously as possible.”

And despite national security concerns, the suspension order handed out to Vineyard Wind 1 allows the project to continue producing power. “In addition, given that this project is partially generating power, you may continue any activities from those wind turbines that are necessary for the current level of power generation,” the order said. South Fork Wind, a 12-turbine project developed by Ørsted that is completely operational, was not suspended.

“If their concern is radar, then it’s really the turning of the turbines that is driving a lot of that concern in my technical understanding of it,” Segal said. She added that the concern doesn’t feel legitimate to her, because South Fork is allowed to stay operational, and Vineyard Wind 1 is allowed to still produce power.

In a document from the federal defendants, they referenced Trump’s executive memorandum from Jan. 20 that directed federal agencies to suspend all new leases for wind projects before a large assessment of the approval process. The same day, Walter Cruickshank, then acting secretary of the Department of the Interior, issued a written order that suspended for 60 days, though that period came and went, the authority for federal agencies to issue wind approvals.

However, a federal judge overturned that action, taken pursuant to Trump’s memo, in early December, and ruled in favor of a lawsuit by Massachusetts and several other states that challenged the current administration. It essentially created a path for new wind projects not under construction to move forward. It didn’t protect projects already under construction.

And so federal defendants in this case used the memorandum and written order to justify their suspensions of projects under construction. They also defended their authority to issue a suspension order under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA), and said that national security concerns outweigh harm to the developer.

Developers of all of the projects but one, Vineyard Wind 1, have taken the matter to court as of Jan. 14. In the discourse on wind, Vineyard Wind officials have remained mostly silent since Trump entered office, and that seemed to work for them for most of the year. The project survived unscathed by the bombardment of stop-work orders and threats of permit reconsiderations by the federal government seen by other projects, and even made good progress on outreach through an amended agreement on a series of commitments owed to the town of Nantucket by the company, which Vineyard towns may replicate. That’s all changed now. James Hagerty, Edgartown town administrator, said officials from Vineyard Wind 1, 15 miles from the Island, understandably won’t sit down until February at the earliest. 

Though Revolution Wind is visible and close to Island shores, the project holds power purchase agreements, contracts that allow states to purchase energy produced by a project, with Rhode Island and Connecticut. In a legal document from the developer’s lawyers, the developer proved enough harm, which included but wasn’t limited to that construction delay, could lead to “potential termination of the majority of Revolution Wind’s power purchase agreements” for the federal judge to issue a stay and preliminary injunction. They also said that their contract with a turbine installation vessel expires late next month, and that they’ve incurred millions of dollars in losses since the suspension.

Green Oceans, a nonprofit against industrialization in the ocean, also intervened in the case, and is listed as an intervenor defendant on court documents. The group said in a statement they respected the court’s decision, but referenced a separate case by them that is two years old, and raises statutory, environmental, and national security issues that they said differ from those addressed by Lamberth on Monday.

“The court’s ruling today does not change the federal government’s obligation to protect national security and the marine environment,” Dr. Elizabeth Knight, president of Green Oceans, said in the statement. “Those responsibilities continue under federal law.”

The statement also spoke to concerns over radar interference, which they said has been addressed by other countries, subsidies paid by taxpayers, a lack of local, long-term jobs for the project, and electricity prices. They suggested that turbines be sited outside of radar line-of-sight interference zones.

Meanwhile, ACK for Whales, a self-dubbed nonpartisan grassroots environmental group, separately sued the federal government in the District Court of D.C. over Vineyard Wind 1 last Friday. The suit said that under then–President Joe Biden, the DoI and BOEM violated the OCSLA and the Administrative Procedures Act when the agencies approved the Records of Decision and Construction and Operations Plan for the Vineyard Wind 1 project.

Danny Pronk, a Nantucket lobsterman, and William (“Buddy”) Vanderhoop, a member of the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) and a fisherman, joined the lawsuit as well. 

“The Biden Administration chose a big, foreign-owned wind company, Vineyard Wind, over local businessmen, hurt my business, and jacked up our electric rates in the process,” Vanderhoop said in a statement from the group. “All in the name of a big green lie.”