‘Incredibly reckless’: Trump’s wind halt stuns even some allies

President Donald Trump has taken jabs at offshore wind all year. On Monday, he threw a haymaker that threatens to knock the U.S. industry to the mat.

The president’s decision to pause construction of five offshore wind projects capable of powering nearly 2.7 million homes along the East Coast marked an escalation of a yearlong effort to shut down the industry, jolting the political debate surrounding rising electricity prices.

In New England, the regional grid operator warned the stoppage could send power prices soaring and threaten the reliability of its six-state electric system. In Virginia, the utility building the country’s largest coastal wind project said the pause hinders its ability to keep up with rising electricity consumption from data centers. And on Capitol Hill, the order threatened to stymie a long-debated bipartisan energy permitting bill winding its way through Congress. Senate Democrats said Monday they were halting negotiations over the bill in response to the stoppage.

Rising electricity prices have emerged as a growing political problem for Trump’s party and as a campaign theme for Democrats hoping to claw back control of Congress next year. And Trump’s newest move jeopardizes major new power sources that were already on their way to completion.

“It is coming at a time when the main topic is affordability, affordability. This is running contrary to that in my opinion,” said Tim Ennis, a power market analyst at GridStatus, a website that tracks wholesale electricity markets. “If you want to make the argument that these projects are too expensive and we shouldn’t build more, that’s one thing. But these projects are in the water.”

Monday’s action also complicates life for Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, who personally lobbied Trump in May to save one of the five wind projects in question.

Trump campaigned on a pledge to stop offshore wind development for his second term and immediately set about fulfilling the promise with a Day 1 executive order calling for a review of offshore wind permits. Federal agencies have since proposed pulling permits for projects yet to start construction, launched national security investigations into imported turbine components and even tried unsuccessfully to block two projects under construction.

Monday’s order goes beyond that. The Interior Department said it was issuing an immediate pause to the five projects, citing classified reports from the Department of Defense on wind turbines’ impact to military radar. Two companies that received the order, Dominion Energy and Ørsted, described it as a 90-day pause. The order halts work at Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind near Virginia Beach; Empire Wind and Sunrise Wind off New York state; and Revolution Wind and Vineyard Wind off New England.

In an appearance on Fox News, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum intimated that the Pentagon’s findings were based on recent drone warfare observed in conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East. He said federal officials were working with the companies “to see if there’s a way to actually mitigate this.”

The White House was more explicit that Trump simply doesn’t want wind.

“President Trump has been clear: wind energy is the scam of the century,” said Taylor Rogers, a White House spokesperson, repeating a favorite administration talking point. “For years, Americans have been forced to pay billions more for the least reliable sources of energy.”

The move came as the five projects continue to advance. Coastal Virginia, which is two-thirds complete, began installing turbines over the weekend, according to a spokesperson for Dominion Energy, the utility building it. In New England, Vineyard Wind is already sending electricity to the power grid. The region has repeatedly set new records for wind generation since its developer said half of the turbines were exporting power at the end of September.

The pause garnered praise from offshore wind opponents, who called the effort overdue. Some even urged the administration to go further.

Ted Hadzi-Antich, a senior attorney with the conservative Texas Public Policy Foundation, said the “next step” is for the government to order removal of equipment installed during construction of at least one of the five projects to “bring the area back to a pristine, fishable habitat for the benefit of all Americans.”

But offshore wind supporters called the charges bogus.

“I was involved in developing 3 of these 5 projects for the last 10 years. I can tell you the Department of Defense was vigorous and thorough in examining any potential threat to national security, including potential radar interference,” wrote Julia Bovey, a former offshore wind executive who worked on Empire Wind, Revolution Wind and Sunrise Wind.

She added: “In fact, when opponents tried to use the threat of radar interference as an excuse to block the projects, top military officials said, ‘If wind turbines could hinder the US Navy from protecting our county, we’ve got a much bigger problem on our hands.’”

The order thrusts offshore wind to the forefront of political discussions over electricity prices and permitting reform. Democrats won gubernatorial elections in New Jersey and Virginia last month on a pledge to tame rising power prices. Trump administration officials have indicated they are sensitive to the issue. In a recent interview with POLITICO, Energy Secretary Chris Wright laid out administration policies that he said would soon push prices down. 

But analysts said the construction pause threatens to exacerbate the issue. Electricity prices for reserve power spiked in an auction held last week by the PJM Interconnection, the organization that operates a 13-state grid stretching from Virginia to Illinois.

The rising prices are a “blaring alarm” signaling the need for new power plants to be built to meet mounting electricity demand, Ennis said. Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind, a 176-turbine project being built by Dominion, was supposed to relieve that pressure by injecting 2,600 megawatts of electricity directly into Virginia, which is home to the world’s largest concentration of data centers.

Jeffrey Shields, a PJM spokesperson, said in an email that the project “would provide substantial power” to enhance the reliability and affordability of the system.

“We hope for a speedy security review that will allow PJM to integrate this and other new projects into the PJM generation fleet as soon as possible,” he added.

The Virginia project also had the support of key Republican officials, including House Speaker Mike Johnson and Virginia Rep. Jen Kiggans, who narrowly won reelection last year during a campaign where offshore wind featured prominently.

Kiggans said she had been working with the Interior Department and outgoing Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin for months to safeguard the Virginia project. Halting the project at this stage, she said in a Monday statement, would be “disastrous” for energy security, the local economy and military readiness. A spokesperson for Youngkin did not respond to a request for comment.

Neil Chatterjee, a Republican who served as the chair of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission during Trump’s first term, wrote in a LinkedIn post that the decision “sets a terrible precedent at a time when we need every available electron.”

“I find this to be incredibly reckless,” he wrote. “How are we going to support all the data centers? I was critical of the Biden administration for targeting fossil fuels. I am critical of this administration for targeting clean energy. Now more than ever we need it all.”

In New England, state officials and the regional grid operator said the pause would hamper attempts to improve reliability and reduce costs of the natural gas-dependent power system.

Democratic Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey pledged to “stand up against this unlawful action by the Trump Administration.” She noted that 572 megawatts, or about 70 percent of Vineyard Wind’s 800-megawatt capacity, is now operational.

Vineyard Wind was due to be followed next year by Revolution Wind, a 704-megawatt project serving Connecticut and Rhode Island. Officials from both states charged the Trump administration with seeking to circumvent a court order that overturned an attempt to stop work on Revolution Wind earlier this year. The project is slated to begin sending power to the two states next year.

“This appears to be a second, even more lawless and erratic stop work order, reviving the Trump Administration’s prior failed attempt to halt construction of Revolution Wind,” Democratic Connecticut Attorney General William Tong said.

The two projects had been expected to relieve pressure on New England’s limited natural gas pipeline network, which can get squeezed in the winter months when demand for power and heating surges, said ISO New England, which operates the region’s six-state electric grid. It noted that both projects are included in its near-term and long-term planning forecasts needed to help meet electricity demand.

“While ISO-NE forecasts enough generation capacity is available for the current season, canceling or delaying these projects will increase costs and risks to reliability in our region,” the grid operator said in a statement. “Beyond increasing risk to reliability, delays of new generating resources also will adversely affect New England’s economy and industrial growth, including potential future data centers.”

The Trump administration’s actions also cast a shadow on legislative efforts to craft a bipartisan permitting overhaul package.

Just last week House lawmakers advanced legislation on the topic, but only after inserting language backed by conservatives that would enable the Trump administration to maintain its attempts to shut down offshore wind projects.

The provision immediately raised the stakes for negotiations in the Senate, where Republicans need to win over a handful of Democratic votes to secure passage of the bill.

Trump’s actions make that job even harder, Hill watchers said.

“Senate Democrats have little incentive to vote for legislation they view as unacceptable when the political winds on affordability are at their backs heading into next year’s midterms,” said Chris Moyer, the president of Echo Communications Advisors, a public affairs firm focused on climate and clean energy.

The sentiment was bolstered Monday when two lead Senate Democrats halted negotiations over the administration’s actions.

“The illegal attacks on fully permitted renewable energy projects must be reversed if there is to be any chance that permitting talks resume,” said Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), ranking member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, and Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), ranking member of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, in a joint statement. “There is no path to permitting reform if this administration refuses to follow the law.”