Interior to Review Offshore Wind Rules Amid Push for Fossil Fuel

The Interior Department will review all offshore wind energy regulations as a step toward ending preferential treatment for wind and solar, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum announced Thursday.

The review is part of the Trump administration’s plans to halt renewable energy development and promote fossil fuels. However, those forms of traditional energy generation are major contributors to climate change.

The Renewable Energy Modernization Rule is the review’s main target, the department announced Thursday. The rule, which the Biden administration finalized in May 2024, created a renewable energy leasing schedule and reduced restrictions on offshore wind power developers.

Burgum said the department wants to ensure the rule complies with the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, or OCSLA, and doesn’t promote renewables over other energy sources.

“We’re taking a results-driven approach that prioritizes reliability, strengthens national security and upholds both scientific integrity and responsible environmental stewardship,” Burgum said in a statement.

The Oceantic Network, a trade group representing the offshore wind industry, said Thursday the review continues a false narrative that will prevent an important source of electricity from reaching the grid when ratepayers are being stuck with high energy costs.

“Crippling affordable and reliable wind energy makes no economic sense and undermines the administration’s ‘all-of-the-above’ energy strategy,” said Oceantic Network spokeswoman Stephanie Francoeur. “We urge the Department to adopt policies which put all sources of American energy on an even playing field.”

The department announced the review after the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management on July 30 rescinded 3.5 million acres of offshore wind energy areas designated by the Biden administration for offshore wind farm leasing.

It also follows the Bureau of Land Management’s Aug. 6 cancellation of the Lava Ridge Wind Project in Idaho, which the Biden administration approved.