Nantucket Group Petitions Trump Administration To Rescind Vineyard Wind Approval

Less than 24 hours after President Donald Trump's administration halted construction of a New York offshore wind project, a Nantucket group has petitioned federal agencies to take the same approach with Vineyard Wind off Nantucket.

In a letter delivered to Trump's Secretary of the Interior, Doug Burgum, as well as the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), ACK For Whales, the island-based non-profit that has fought Vineyard Wind for years, urged the new administration to rescind Vineyard Wind's revised construction and operations plan that was approved in January.

Raising a host of concerns about the contents of Vineyard Wind's revised plan, ACK For Whales also pointed out that the company was allowed to resume construction before the federal Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) had concluded its investigation into the July 2024 blade failure. That investigation remains active more than nine months after the incident. ACK For Whale's letter also points out that Vineyard Wind has not completed a study evaluating the "environmental harm" of the blade failure, which was ordered by BSEE last September.

Attempting to seize on the Trump administration's hostility toward offshore wind, and its recent action to halt construction of the Empire Wind project, ACK For Whales calls for the "reopening, reanalysis, and revocation" of Vineyard Wind's construction and operation plan (COP).

"BOEM should not have approved the revised COP until BSEE concluded its investigation and enforced its order for the developer to analyze the environmental impacts of the catastrophic blade failure that occurred over nine months ago," the group wrote in its letter. "Moreover, on April 16, 2025, Doug Burgum, Secretary of the Interior, directed BOEM to issue a suspension order of the Empire Offshore Wind project, citing serious deficiencies in analyses and rushed approvals. Vineyard Wind 1, subject to the same highly expedited process, is replete with analytic deficiencies..."

President Trump's executive order on offshore wind, signed in January, directed Burgum to "conduct a comprehensive review of the ecological, economic, and environmental necessity of terminating or amending any existing wind energy leases..."

While industry experts have stated Trump's administration would have a much tougher time halting fully permitted offshore wind farms - especially one already well into construction like Vineyard Wind - the action against Empire Wind suggests that possibility may not be far-fetched.

Whether ACK For Whales letter will have any impact on the Trump administration's consideration of Vineyard Wind or Southcoast Wind remains to be seen.