The development of offshore wind continues to face obstacles in the spirit of President Trump’s January 20, 2025 memorandum, which called for a stop to the issuance of permits, leases, and authorizations to develop and operate wind energy projects while awaiting a review of federal wind leasing and permitting practices. Additional hurdles, in the forms of a legislative carveout and new agency action, come on the heels of a U.S. District Court’s ruling to vacate previous orders issued by several federal agencies to halt the issuance of all authorizations related to wind energy projects pursuant to President Trump’s memorandum.
On December 18, 2025, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Standardizing Permitting and Expediting Economic Development (SPEED) Act, legislation aimed to expedite permitting for energy projects under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). However, the House-approved legislation contained a carveout for those projects which have either been voluntarily remanded by a federal agency or have otherwise been reopened, reconsidered, or have had a corrective action initiated against it by a federal agency, on or after January 20, 2025, up to the date the bill would be enacted. The carveout was specifically designed to preserve ongoing administrative corrections taken which target permits for offshore wind projects. The following week, on December 22, 2025, the Department of Interior (DOI) announced an immediate pause on leases for all large-scale U.S. offshore wind projects under construction due to “national security risks” identified by the Department of War (formally, Department of Defense (DOD)), specifically announcing the pausing of five specific leases.
SPEED Act Carveout
The SPEED Act streamlines environmental review by, among other changes, narrowing the federal actions which trigger NEPA review and limiting judicial review through deadlines and additional requirements. Prior to reaching the version of the SPEED Act as submitted for Senate review, the House considered several amendments, including language which prevents the streamlining effects from applying to offshore wind projects. The December 16, 2025 House of Representatives Report provided the potential amendments to the bill, including an amendment which explicitly exempts offshore wind activities from the bill’s reforms (Amendment 3) and an amendment which exempts project authorizations for which a federal agency has filed a motion to remand or otherwise reopened between January 20, 2025 and the date of enactment for the bill (Amendment 4).
Other amendments were considered: an amendment to clarify that emotional, aesthetic, and recreational harm on their own cannot be classified as direct harm (Amendment 1); an amendment to remove protections over already-issued authorizations (Amendment 2); an amendment to clarify that NEPA review only applies to environmental impacts which the relevant federal agencies have legal authority to regulate (Amendment 5); and an amendment to narrow what significant effects will trigger the requirement for an Environmental Impact Statement pursuant to NEPA (Amendment 6).
The Congressional Record for December 17, 2025 shows that the language of Amendment 4 was adopted in the House. During debate and discussion on December 18, 2025, however, Amendments 2 and 3 were not offered. Though Amendment 4 does not specifically name offshore wind as exempt in the same way as Amendment 3, Amendment 4 was drafted specifically to target offshore wind projects to avoid nullification of Trump administration actions taken earlier this year pursuant to President Trump’s directives regarding the temporary ban on offshore wind projects.
National Security Risk Halt
According to the DOI Press Release, national security risks were identified by recent classified reports from the DOD warranting a pause on all large-scale offshore wind projects to give time for relevant government agencies to work with leaseholders and state partners to determine potential mitigation of such national security risks. The pause and work towards potential mitigation, the DOI states, will appropriately address the U.S. government’s ability to effectively defend the American people.
Particular to large-scale offshore wind projects, the DOI Press Release provides that unclassified reports from the U.S. Government have found that “the movement of massive turbine blades and the highly reflective towers create radar interference called ‘clutter’ [, which] “obscures legitimate moving targets and generates false targets in the vicinity of the wind projects.” Other security risks mentioned by Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum include “the rapid evolution of the relevant adversary technologies” and vulnerabilities created by such projects near east cost population centers.
Responses to Project Pause
Governors for the states of Massachusetts, New York, Connecticut, and Rhode Island have since released a joint statement in response to offshore wind development challenges, stating that the pausing of active leases threatens grid reliability and citing the recent U.S District Court ruling vacating federal agency orders to pause wind energy project authorizations. The two Senators for the state of Massachusetts have requested that the Secretaries of the DOI and DOD organize a time to view and discuss such referenced classified reports cited by the DOI to support the national security risk halt.
In conjunction with the DOI’s announcement of the national security risk halt, the DOI issued formal letters to developers of the five targeted offshore wind projects – Vineyard Wind 1, Revolution Wind, CVOW – Commercial, Sunrise Wind, and Empire Wind – directing the projects to suspend all ongoing activities for 90 days, subject to further extension based on potential determination of mitigation measures by the DOD and Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM). These letters came despite past coordination between developers and relevant federal agencies in preparation for the wind projects and associated leases. The Record of Decision for Revolution Wind, for example, prepared in conjunction with the DOI, BOEM, and DOD, among other agencies, can be found here. Effected developers, including Dominion Energy, Orsted, and Equinor, have filed suit in the U.S. District Courts for the Eastern District of Virginia and the District of Columbia seeking preliminary injunctions to allow continuation of construction while litigation proceeds.
Uncertain Future for Offshore Wind Development
Considering the current scene, a recent U.S. District Court ruling to vacate previous project pauses, ongoing agency actions targeting offshore wind projects, and while awaiting legislative deliberations, the future of offshore wind development remains uncertain with implications on state policy changes and implementation also unknown.
For more information, please contact Andrea Sarmentero Garzón, Sean Neal, or Paige Punzalan. This update is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. For legal guidance specific to your situation, please contact your attorney.