Vineyard Wind sues Trump administration for halting construction – WBUR
The developers behind Vineyard Wind, a large and nearly complete offshore wind farm off the coast of Massachusetts, are suing the Trump administration for halting construction on the project last month.
In a lawsuit filed Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, the developers argued the administration acted unlawfully and abused its statutory authority when it suspended the project’s lease, grinding construction to a halt. In a 52-page complaint, the plaintiffs asked the court for a temporary restraining order that would allow the companies to get back to work immediately.
News of the lawsuit immediately drew praise from Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey and Attorney General Andrea Campbell, as well as from environmental advocates.
“Vineyard Wind is a key part of the region’s efforts to decarbonize and reduce our reliance on fossil fuels,” said Nick Krakoff, a lawyer with the Conservation Law Foundation. “Despite the Trump administration’s efforts to shut down clean, affordable energy options for the region, we’re continuing to see judges reject those efforts.”
Vineyard Wind’s lawsuit comes hours after a federal judge in a separate case ruled that construction could resume on Empire Wind, an offshore wind farm affected by the December order. Earlier this week, yet another judge ruled that construction could resume on Revolution Wind, an offshore wind project off the coast of Connecticut and Rhode Island. Lawsuits are pending for the two other projects affected by the December order: Sunrise Wind and Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind.
Lawyers for both Empire Wind, which is 60% complete, and Revolution Wind, which is 87% complete, said in court this week that any further delay in getting back to work may derail the projects’ timelines and force the developers to cancel them.
Vineyard Wind made a similar plea for injunctive relief in its complaint. The 62-turbine project has been under construction since 2021, and at the time of the stop-work order, was 95% complete and already generating power for the New England grid. The company said it has spent $4.5 billion on the project, and is losing about $2 million each day the project is shut down.
If the order remains in effect, Vineyard Wind will be “unable to complete construction of the Project before it loses access to a specialized installation vessel that is under contract with Vineyard Wind only until March 31, 2026,” the complaint stated. “The inability to timely complete construction of the Project in turn jeopardizes the revenues and financing necessary for the Project to remain viable.”
The complaint also alleged that the government’s purported reason for suspending work on the project is “arbitrary and capricious.” In it’s Dec. 22 order, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, an agency within the U.S. Interior Department, said new classified information from the Department of Defense found that offshore wind turbines pose a national security risk. The agency ordered a 90-day pause in construction on five projects along the east coast to give it time to look into the matter more.
According to Vineyard Wind’s lawsuit, the developers reached out to the federal government to get more information about the concerns, but were rebuffed. Revolution Wind also said its attempts to reach federal officials failed because the agencies claimed the information was classified.
“Today’s lawsuit suggests that Vineyard Wind may think it has a better shot in the courts than negotiating with the Trump Administration,” said Timothy Fox, managing director at ClearView Energy Partners, an independent research firm that tracks offshore wind projects.
It’s long been known that offshore wind turbines can interfere with military radar and create what’s known as “clutter,” but there are technological ways to mitigate the issue.
In fact, during the multi-year permitting process for an offshore wind project, the Department of Defense plays a big role in vetting and assessing whether turbines pose a problem, and whether there are ways to work around it.
All five of the projects suspended last month received the greenlight from the Defense Department before beginning construction.
In a statement, Gov. Maura Healey slammed the Trump administration for what she deemed a “reckless and pointless attack on existing offshore wind projects.”
Since taking office last year, President Trump has paused all offshore wind permitting and issued several stop work orders. Last week, Trump bragged to a group of oil executives about his attacks on offshore wind. He called wind farms “losers” and vowed not to “approve any windmills in this country.”
“Vineyard Wind is already providing power and has created thousands of jobs. Halting this project now will only create reliability issues, increase winter electricity bills and cost jobs,” Healey said in her statement. “President Trump should be embracing an all-of-the-above approach to American energy, not shutting down critical sources like wind.”
Late last month, after the suspension order came down, the New England regional grid operator, ISO- New England, issued a statement noting that Vineyard Wind and Revolution Wind are “are particularly important to system reliability,” and that “canceling or delaying these projects will increase costs and risks to reliability in our region.”
Under the terms of the suspension, Vineyard Wind has been able to continue generating power. The project currently has 44 turbines up and running, providing up to 572 megawatts. At the time of the stop-work order, the project was scheduled to be complete by March 31, 2026, and able to deliver up to 800 megawatts — enough electricity to power 400,000 homes in the region.
