Trump’s Halt of Wind Farms Shows Scope of Anti-Renewables Effort

The Interior Department’s stop-work order for Orsted’s Revolution Wind offshore wind project in Rhode Island escalates the Trump administration’s efforts to grind all renewable energy development to a halt in an unprecedented move with lasting impact on the use of federal lands.

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum’s Aug. 1 order suggested all wind and solar projects on federal lands and waters are illegal under three environmental laws, the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, and the Federal Lands Policy and Management Act.

Agency officials have until the end of the month to report how they’ll implement that order, even as the administration moves ahead with scrutiny of current projects.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management cited OCSLA on Aug. 22 when it ordered Orsted A/S to halt work on the 65-turbine Revolution Wind project in order for the bureau to review the project to protect unspecified national security interests. The company said in a statement that the wind farm is 80% complete and it’s considering “all options” to resume the project, including legal action.

The Interior Department also plans to move to vacate and remand its approval of the Maryland Offshore Wind Project by Sept. 12 in Mayor and Council of Ocean City v. Interior, a case filed in US District Court for the District of Maryland. That’s according to an Aug. 22 Justice Department filing in a related case, Bintz v. Interior, filed in US District Court for the District of Delaware. Both suits challenge the Biden administration’s approval of the 2.2 gigawatt, 114-turbine project off the coasts of Maryland and Delaware.

The order to stop work on Revolution Wind is a “flashing red light” for US clean energy investments that require federal approvals, and it’s “consistent with the Trump administration’s all-of-government effort to stop wind farms,” said Michael Gerrard, faculty director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University.

The Interior Department and Orsted didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Disfavoring Industry

The provocations against renewables offer scant justification, and represent an unprecedented offensive against an entire industry, natural resources lawyers say.

It’s best to think of Interior’s anti-renewables orders as not being connected to each other, but to White House directives to end federal support for wind and solar projects, said Travis Annatoyn, counsel at Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP, who served as a deputy Interior solicitor in the Biden administration.

“There is a connection between every one of these orders and the ur-decision that the industry ought to be disfavored,” he said. “Every order they’ve put out so far is just devoid of reasoning on its face.”

President Donald Trump targeted wind on his first day in office when he ordered a halt to all offshore wind leasing and declared an energy emergency that favored fossil fuel sources. The order called state policies supporting renewables “dangerous” and excluded wind and solar power from its definition of “energy.”

Since then, Burgum said he believes wind and solar power projects are unreliable and environmentally harmful. He took things a step further in his Aug. 1 order, questioning whether any solar or wind project is legal because each one is an “encumbrance” on other land uses.

“I know of no precedent for such a sweeping order, outlawing an entire sector of otherwise lawful activities that have been conducted on public lands for many years,” said John Leshy, a University of California College of the Law professor who served as Interior’s solicitor general in the Clinton administration.

Interior would need to ask a court for “a lot of deference” in a post-Loper Bright world in order to mount an effective legal defense of its anti-renewables orders, Leshy said.

If it were to succeed, though, it also would allow a future administration to more explicitly block polluting industries from operating on federal lands, he said.

Land Plan Implications

The order could influence long-term planning for federal lands and waters, potentially closing off lands for renewable energy in planning documents that are often in effect for decades, said Svend Brandt-Erichsen, partner at Nossaman LLP in Seattle.

A separate Aug. 1 secretary’s order directed Burgum’s deputies to review federal land use plans that support wind and solar development, and called the Biden administration’s support for those projects “destructive and ideological.”

“There could be an effort to rewrite plans to close areas to renewables development,” Brandt-Erichsen said.

The order questioning whether federal wind and solar projects are legal is likely indefensible in court because it uses a legal standard for unnecessary and undue environmental degradation as a primary reason to target renewables, he said.

“I don’t think Interior could defend making that determination based solely on this factor,” Brandt-Erichsen said. “Those tests are intended to consider a wide range of factors.”