On Monday afternoon, clean energy supporters around the country cheered as a coalition of attorneys general, including Andrea Campbell in Massachusetts, announced a legal win: the overturning of a Trump administration ban on wind energy permitting.
In press releases and public statements, politicians and advocacy organizations touted the rule of law and celebrated the resurrection of an industry that many states — including Massachusetts — have hung their energy futures on.
More quietly, though, experts working on offshore wind wondered: Here in New England, where offshore wind had been on the cusp of taking off before Trump was elected, will this week’s ruling make any difference?
Federal Judge Patti Saris of the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts vacated President Trump’s Jan. 20 executive order blocking wind energy projects, saying the effort to halt virtually all leasing of wind farms on federal lands and waters was “arbitrary and capricious” and violates US law.
Since Trump took office, months of unrelenting opposition have hobbled the industry in the United States, stopping every in-development project except for the small few that had all of their permits. Even among those, only Vineyard Wind, in the waters south of Martha’s Vineyard, escaped without any interference from the Trump administration.
The ruling “does nothing to get back what we’ve lost — money for ports, companies abandoning sites, laying off workers, canceling contracts, supply chain businesses,"" said Amy Boyd Rabin, vice president of policy at the Environmental League of Massachusetts. For three projects under construction — Vineyard Wind, Revolution Wind in Rhode Island, and Empire Wind in New York — clean energy advocates said at the very least, the ruling could ensure a clear path to completion.
As for whether stalled projects, where construction never began, will be able to move ahead, that remains to be seen, Rabin said.
It’s not clear whether wind developers would be willing to invest in the United States right now, when the risk of further obstruction remains. And even though the outright ban has been overturned, there are other ways the Trump administration can stand in the way.
“Given how forthright this administration has been in their opposition, there are so many other legal levers that can be used,” said Dan Dolan, president of the New England Power Generators Association.
The Trump administration could also fall back on the approach it used last time he was in office of slow-walking offshore wind permitting. “You can question it to death. You can just say, ‘You know, you’re deficient here. We need more information there.’ There are always delay tactics that can be used,” Dolan said.
That proved to be an effective approach during the first Trump presidency, when Vineyard Wind had been poised for final approval before the administration called for the broad study of the potential cumulative impacts of planned offshore wind projects — part of a hinder and delay strategy that ground progress to a halt.
The risks facing developers now make it especially challenging for projects early in the permitting process. But for developers who were close to the finish line when Trump announced in January that all permits would be frozen, Monday’s ruling could be the green light they’ve been waiting for.
Just days before Trump was sworn in, the SouthCoast Wind development, another project planned for waters south of Martha’s Vineyard, received its last major federal permit. The project would have resulted in 141 turbines creating enough power for 840,000 homes in Massachusetts and Rhode Island by the end of the decade.
But SouthCoast still lacked several smaller approvals when Trump entered office and called for a pause on federal lease approvals, leaving the project dead in the water, at least temporarily.
The hits have continued to come since then.
In September, The New York Times reported that six federal agencies had been instructed by the White House to draft plans to fight offshore wind. That included agencies with seemingly little to do with the industry, such as the Department of Health and Human Services and the Defense Department.
And just last month, a federal judge in Washington ruled the Trump administration could rreconsider the SouthCoast approval, which had come during the Biden administration.
Other projects face similar hurdles.
Despite the remaining obstacles, clean energy advocates celebrated the judicial win Monday as a triumph of the rule of law. “Overturning the unlawful blanket halt to offshore wind permitting activities is needed to achieve our nation’s energy and economic priorities of bringing more power online quickly, improving grid reliability, and driving billions of new American steel manufacturing and shipbuilding investments,” Liz Burdock, chief executive of the renewable energy trade group Oceantic Network, said in an emailed statement. It’s coming at a critical time.
As temperatures in the region plummet causing energy demand and natural gas prices to spike, the value of Vineyard Wind is making itself clear. The project, which was halfway complete as of September, is contributing to the power grid, said Larry Chretien, executive director of the Green Energy Consumers Alliance. By displacing the need for additional natural gas, that amount of wind is saving ratepayers roughly $2 million a day during this cold snap, he said.
But as much as Vineyard Wind is valuable for the electricity it creates, that’s true of the jobs it creates, too. The project is estimated to have supported more than 3,400 jobs, including many in construction. The assumption had been that the many construction workers who gained valuable experience on Vineyard Wind would be hired on the next offshore project planned for Massachusetts water, said Ryan. Murphy, executive director of Climate Jobs Massachusetts.
As of now, unless additional projects are able to get back into the permitting process, “they’ll be out of a job,” Murphy said. Chretien noted that as much as he hates to use wartime analogies, here they feel apt. “Those of us who are following this see as a battle that we’ve won,” he said, “but it’s not over.”