The Trump administration on Friday issued an order to stop work on a nearly complete offshore wind energy project, the latest step in the Trump administration’s crackdown on wind power.
In a letter to Orsted, the Danish company developing Revolution Wind, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management said its order is tied to concerns about “the protection of national security interests of the United States and prevention of interference with reasonable uses of the exclusive economic zone, the high seas, and the territorial seas.”
The letter did not explain why the project posed national security concerns or interfered with reasonable uses of the area. BOEM did not respond to emailed questions.
The order follows a Thursday announcement from the U.S. Commerce Department that it had initiated an investigation Aug. 13 into “the effects on the national security of imports of wind turbines and their parts and components,” which could allow Trump to apply increased tariffs to wind turbines.
In a company announcement on Friday, Orsted said that Revolution Wind is already 80 percent complete. It is located in federal waters about 15 miles south of Port Judith, Rhode Island, halfway between Block Island, Rhode Island, and Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts.
“Orsted is evaluating all options to resolve the matter expeditiously,” the company said, including “engagement with relevant permitting agencies for any necessary clarification or resolution as well as through potential legal proceedings.”
According to the announcement, Revolution Wind is expected to deliver 400 megawatts of electricity to Rhode Island and 304 megawatts to Connecticut—enough to power more than 350,000 homes across the two states.
A spokesperson for Orsted declined an interview request for this story.
Environmental groups and elected officials have criticized the stop work order and cast doubt on the legitimacy of the administration’s national security concerns.
Pasha Feinberg, an offshore wind specialist at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said any potential concerns would have arisen far earlier in the development process.
“Every single offshore wind project—from the site selection phase all the way through construction and operation—is done in consultation with the Department of Defense,” Feinberg said. “This is, I think, more looking for a reason to discredit offshore wind.”
Rhode Island Gov. Dan McKee said in a post on X Saturday that he and Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont, both Democrats, would “pursue every avenue” to reverse the stop work order.
Lamont decried the move as running counter to the Trump administration’s stated goal of energy security and affordability.
The wind project is “exactly the kind of investment that reduces energy costs, strengthens regional production, and builds a more secure energy future – the very goals President Trump claims to support but undermines with this decision,” Lamont said.
Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democrat and outspoken climate hawk, said in an emailed comment that the move “will cost jobs and millions of dollars of investment in Rhode Island’s offshore wind industry.”
“Wind power is one of the fastest, cheapest ways to meet rising electricity demand — discouraging clean energy will raise energy prices and worsen the looming climate crisis — but payback to fossil fuel donors comes first,” Whitehouse said. “This is what corruption looks like.”
Revolution Wind is one of five offshore wind projects currently under construction in the U.S., according to Feinberg, and is the second project that the Trump administration has sought to halt this year.
Empire Wind 1, another major project under construction south of Long Island, received a stop work order in April.
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management claimed at the time that “approval for the project was rushed through by the prior Administration without sufficient analysis or consultation among the relevant agencies.”
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Work on Empire Wind 1 was allowed to resume after BOEM lifted its order in May, following multiple rounds of conversation between Trump and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul.
In a statement to Politico’s E&E News days after the order was lifted in May, the White House claimed that Hochul “caved” and struck an agreement to allow “two natural gas pipelines to advance” through New York.
Hochul denied that any such deal was made.
Trump has made no effort to conceal his disdain for wind power and other renewable energies, and his administration has actively sought to stymie growth in the industry while providing what critics have described as “giveaways” to fossil fuels.
In a Truth Social post on Wednesday, Trump called wind and solar energy the “SCAM OF THE CENTURY,” criticizing states that have built and rely on them for power.
“We will not approve wind or farmer destroying Solar,” Trump wrote. “The days of stupidity are over in the USA!!!”
On Trump’s first day in office, the president issued a memorandum halting approvals, permits, leases and loans for both offshore and onshore wind projects.
The GOP also targeted wind energy in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, accelerating the phaseout of tax credits for wind and solar projects while mandating lease sales for fossil fuels and making millions of acres of federal land available for mining.
The administration’s subsequent consideration of rules to further restrict access to tax credits for wind and solar projects alarmed even some Republicans, prompting Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley and Utah Sen. John Curtis to place holds on Treasury nominees as they awaited the department’s formal guidance.
Those moves have rattled the wind industry and created uncertainty about the viability of ongoing and future projects.
“The unfortunate message to investors is clear: the U.S. is no longer a reliable place for long-term energy investments,” said the American Clean Power Association, a trade association, in a statement on Friday.
To Kathleen Meil, local clean energy deployment director at the League of Conservation Voters, that represents a loss not only for the environment, but also for the U.S. economy.
“It’s really easy to think about the visible—the 4,200 jobs across all phases of development that you see … They’ve hit more than 2 million union work hours on Revolution Wind,” Meil said.
“But what’s also really transformational is that it’s already triggered $1.3 billion in investment through the supply chain. So it’s not just coastal communities that are benefiting from these jobs,” she said.
“This hurts so many people. And why? There’s just no justification.”
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Aidan Hughes is a reporter at Inside Climate News covering Congress and the Trump administration. Previously a data fellow at the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism, he worked on an IRE Award-winning series investigating privately sponsored congressional travel. He also builds tools that help other journalists cover underreported forms of political influence. He holds a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Maryland.
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