Trump takes another swing at offshore wind

Bloomberg News

The Trump administration has found a new angle from which to attack offshore wind energy projects. 

The Department of the Interior announced Monday that it's pausing the leases for five wind farm projects on the east coast, claiming the projects would interfere with national security. 

"This pause will give the Department, along with the Department of War and other relevant government agencies, time to work with leaseholders and state partners to assess the possibility of mitigating the national security risks posed by these projects," the Interior Department said in a press release.

The wind farms, collectively, were supposed to power more than 2.5 million homes and businesses, the New York Times reported. 

The governors of Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, and Rhode Island released a joint statement Tuesday decrying the administration's decision. 

"Pausing active leases, especially for completed and nearly completed projects, defies logic, will hurt our bid for energy independence, will drive up costs for America ratepayers, and will make us lose thousands of good-paying jobs. It also threatens grid reliability that is needed to keep the lights on."

If all of this sounds familiar, it's because this isn't the first time this year the Trump administration has attempted to stop offshore wind projects under the pretense of national security. 

President Donald Trump has a longstanding vendetta against wind projects, and he issued an executive order preventing new wind projects at the beginning of his second term. In July, he canceled planned leases for offshore wind projects. 

The administration also targeted wind projects already in development, canceling $697 million of grants and issuing a stop-work order on Revolution Wind, a project off the coast of Connecticut that was 80% complete. 

Revolution Wind, a joint venture of Danish developer Ørsted and a consortium led by Skyborn Renewables, was also alleged to be jeopardizing national security. Both Connecticut and the team behind the project sued to lift the stop-work order, and a judge sided with them in September. 

A judge said the administration did not offer "any factual findings" to support national security concerns from Revolution Wind, Politico reported; he also called the administration's approach "arbitrary and capricious."

Another federal court struck down more attacks from the administration earlier this month. 

This time, the administration provided a few more details on the national security concerns — although it also referenced classified reports. 

National security threats are "inherent to large-scale offshore projects," the Department of the Interior said in its press release. 

"The movement of massive turbine blades and the highly reflective towers create radar interference called 'clutter,'" according to the release. "The clutter caused by offshore wind projects obscures legitimate moving targets and generates false targets in the vicinity of the wind projects."