WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration is asking a federal judge to let it reconsider a major federal permit granted for a large offshore wind farm, making it the fourth project the Republican leadership has targeted in recent months.
The Interior Department wants to reconsider its own approval for the “construction and operations plan” for the New England Wind project off of Massachusetts. The plan was approved in 2024 during the Biden administration. The Justice Department said in a filing Tuesday that the court should send the permit back to Interior, because the plan was approved despite major adverse impacts.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat, warned that the administration now risks derailing a legislative effort to speed up permitting reviews for new energy and infrastructure projects. The Senate reached a bipartisan deal in September on a permitting bill, which has not yet been voted on.
“This is how you blow up a permitting deal,” he said in a statement Wednesday.
The Trump administration is using executive orders, agency actions and the courts to try to stop the development of offshore wind, a technology that President Donald Trump has attacked as “ugly” and unreliable compared to fossil fuels such as coal and natural gas. Officials started buying back offshore wind leases after federal judges blocked its efforts to stop construction on five major East Coast projects.
The Interior Department also wants to reconsider its prior approval of the construction and operations plan for Revolution Wind, a wind farm for Rhode Island and Connecticut that has finished construction, and for the Maryland Offshore Wind Project, which has not yet begun construction.
In August, a judge granted the administration’s request to reconsider the permit for the stalled New Jersey project Atlantic Shores. That project had been halted soon after Trump returned to office because co-owner Shell walked away from it.
Last year, a federal judge said the Trump administration could reconsider the permit granted to the Massachusetts project SouthCoast Wind days before the president’s inauguration to a second term.
Pasha Feinberg, an offshore wind strategist at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said the Trump administration’s attacks on offshore wind are escalating at a time when Americans are struggling with surging utility bills.
“It’s long past time for the Trump administration to realize its war on clean energy is backfiring,” Feinberg said.