The Interior Department’s press release about the pause also cites claims not included in the letter to Dominion Energy, including mention of a 2024 Department of Energy study that determined offshore wind turbines could cause radar to “miss actual targets” while also noting that “wind energy will play a leading role in the nation’s transition to a clean energy economy.”
Dominion Energy did not respond to a request for comment.
A spokesperson for Equinor, the partially state-owned Norwegian energy firm that is developing the Empire Wind project off the coast of New York, said, “We are evaluating the order and seeking further information from the federal government.”
The Trump administration had previously hit two of the affected projects — Empire Wind and Revolution Wind — with stop-work orders. Both installations were later allowed to proceed, although that construction pause cost Equinor nearly $1 billion. The remaining three projects, Coastal Virginia, Vineyard Wind, and Sunrise Wind, had been spared until now. Several of these projects are more than halfway complete; Revolution Wind is at least 80% finished.
Monday’s announcement is not the first time the administration has used national security as an excuse for throwing sand in the gears of offshore wind.
Upon pausing the Revolution Wind project in August, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum invoked national security concerns, including the threat posed by “undersea drones.”
But between 2020 and 2023, the Revolution Wind project endured an extensive regulatory review, including by the Pentagon and Federal Aviation Administration. BOEM approved the project under the condition that all turbines be built to lighting and marking standards that would ensure they’re visible to aircraft at night. No mitigation for radar is mentioned. In August 2023, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers — a branch of the military — co-signed the authorization of plans for Danish developer Ørsted to build 65 wind turbines for the Revolution Wind project.
“Was the military at the table, represented and consulted with during this stakeholder process? The answer is: very much so,” wind energy veteran Bill White told Canary Media in August. From 2009 to 2015, White represented Massachusetts on a BOEM-led intergovernmental task force focused on the siting of New England offshore wind energy areas.
In February 2024, a Brown University research group examined 441 claims made against offshore wind during the first six months of 2023. They found multiple times “military readiness” and “radar interference” were mentioned in ways that the researchers found misleading or problematic.
“[S]uggesting that our military is unaware of this issue or has done nothing to address it is completely untrue,” the report concluded.
J. Timmons Roberts, a co-author of the report and a professor of environmental studies and sociology at Brown University, called the administration’s halt to five approved wind farms because of classified national security information “bonkers.”
“These claims aren’t new and they have been, in the past, shown to be quite baseless,” he said.
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Great Job Clare Fieseler & the Team @ Canary Media Source link for sharing this story.
