Administration suspends all offshore wind farms under construction, citing "national security" (December 22, 2025 )
December 22, 2025 — The Interior Department suspended the federal leases for all five major offshore wind farms currently under construction in the Atlantic Ocean, citing unspecified "national security risks" identified in classified reports — a move that threatened billions of dollars of investment and could delay nearly six gigawatts of new electricity generation. The suspension came just two weeks after a federal court in Massachusetts had struck down the administration's day-one wind moratorium as unlawful in New York v. Trump; rather than comply, the administration invoked new national security justifications to achieve the same result.
The five suspended projects included a massive Virginia offshore wind farm set for completion by end of 2026 that would supply power to the state hosting the world's largest concentration of data centers — and already facing skyrocketing energy demand. The Department of Defense had signed off on every offshore wind lease before construction had begun; the Business Network for Offshore Wind noted that no defense agency had flagged the projects as security concerns. Critics called the move a legally pretext-driven continuation of Trump's longstanding personal opposition to wind energy.
The suspension threatened thousands of construction jobs and rattled the supply chain built around the projects. Governors of Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, and Rhode Island issued a joint demand that Trump resume the projects. Two Democratic senators declared permitting reform negotiations "dead in the water" in response. Separately, in November, a 2.4-gigawatt New Jersey offshore wind project had already been cancelled by its developer in response to the sustained policy uncertainty created by the administration's actions throughout the year.
| https://www.cnn.com/2025/12/22/climate/trump-offshore-wind-suspension-virginia |