Trump offshore wind pause sparks governors’ push for classified briefing and restart

NEW YORK, December 29, 2025, 08:53 ET

• Four Northeast governors urged Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to lift stop-work orders on five offshore wind projects and provide a classified briefing.
• The Trump administration says it paused the leases over national security concerns tied to military radar interference.
• Developers including Ørsted and Equinor have said they are complying while weighing next steps.

Governors in four Northeastern states are pressing the Trump administration to lift its stop-work orders on five offshore wind farms and to provide a classified briefing on the national security claims behind the move, according to CT Insider and Nantucket Current.

The dispute matters now because the projects are already under construction and are expected to deliver large blocks of new electricity to states that have been counting on offshore wind to bolster supply and meet clean-energy goals.

It also puts near-term jobs and contracts at risk. Ironworkers Local 7 said 50 workers lost jobs tied to the halted work at Vineyard Wind, Nantucket Current reported.

Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont, Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and Rhode Island Gov. Dan McKee asked Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to rescind the orders and to brief state officials with security clearances on the evidence for the claimed risks, CT Insider reported.

In their letter, the governors said federal officials did not warn their states about any new threat before the suspension and argued the projects had already undergone extensive federal review, including national security assessments, according to Reuters and CT Insider.

The Interior Department said it paused the leases for the five large-scale projects over concerns that turbine blades and towers can create radar “clutter” that interferes with the military’s ability to identify threats, Reuters reported.

A stop-work order is an instruction to suspend ongoing construction activity in federal waters. Developers received orders describing a 90-day suspension that federal officials can extend, according to a Ørsted investor update carried by MarketScreener.

The five projects include Ørsted’s Revolution Wind and Sunrise Wind, Equinor’s Empire Wind 1, Vineyard Wind 1—developed by Avangrid and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners—and Dominion Energy’s Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind, Reuters reported.

Ørsted said Revolution Wind and Sunrise Wind are in advanced stages of construction and would be ready to deliver power in 2026, with Revolution Wind expected to begin generating power in January, according to the MarketScreener posting of its update.

Equinor said it is complying with the notice for Empire Wind 1 and that the project off New York has a capacity of 810 megawatts, a standard measure of power-plant size, and was more than 60% complete, Reuters reported.

States and developers have argued the projects were already vetted through federal reviews in which the Defense Department had opportunities to raise concerns, the governors’ letter said, according to CT Insider and Reuters.

NOIA President Erik Milito, whose group represents offshore energy companies, said the Defense Department had already reviewed the projects: “Every project under construction has already undergone review by the Department of Defense with no objections.” Reuters

The clash adds to a run of legal and regulatory fights over wind development under Trump. Earlier this month, a federal judge rejected the administration’s halt to all federal approvals for new wind projects, Reuters reported, and CT Insider said another court recently overturned an earlier stop-work order on Revolution Wind.

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