Trump Administration Pauses Vineyard Wind Project Due To National Security Concerns

The Trump administration announced Monday morning that it is pausing the federal leases for Vineyard Wind and four other offshore wind farms due to national security concerns.

The pause, which is effective immediately, was announced by Doug Burgum, Trump's Secretary of the Interior, in consultation with the renamed Department of War (formerly the Department of Defense).

“The prime duty of the United States government is to protect the American people,” Burgum said in a statement. “Today’s action addresses emerging national security risks, including the rapid evolution of the relevant adversary technologies, and the vulnerabilities created by large-scale offshore wind projects with proximity near our east coast population centers. The Trump administration will always prioritize the security of the American people.”

The national security risks - including radar interference - were identified by the Department of War in recently completed classified reports, Burgum announced. The pause affects the following offshore wind projects:

• Vineyard Wind 1
• Revolution Wind
• Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind
• Sunrise Wind
• Empire Wind 1

Vineyard Wind, the 62-turbine wind farm under construction approximately 15 miles southwest of Nantucket, was racing toward completion and had just secured a key permit from the federal Army Corps of Engineers to continue shipping turbine components through New Bedford Harbor's hurricane barrier. Roughly half of its turbines are operational and sending power to the grid as of October.

"This pause will give the Department, along with the Department of War and other relevant government agencies, time to work with leaseholders and state partners to assess the possibility of mitigating the national security risks posed by these projects," the Department of the Interior stated in its announcement. "As for the national security risks inherent to large-scale offshore wind projects, unclassified reports from the U.S. Government have long found that the movement of massive turbine blades and the highly reflective towers create radar interference called 'clutter.' The clutter caused by offshore wind projects obscures legitimate moving targets and generates false targets in the vicinity of the wind projects."

Since returning to office last January, Trump has launched an unprecedented assault on offshore wind, reconsidering several permits, stopping projects already under construction, and stripping funding from related infrastructure projects.

Trump’s campaign against offshore wind has also faced some legal backlash in recent weeks, including an order from a federal judge that struck down his blanket ban on new offshore and onshore wind farms.

On Nantucket, ACK For Whales, the non-profit group that has opposed the Vineyard Wind farm and other offshore wind energy projects for years, hailed the decision by the Trump administration on Monday.

“ACK for Whales is very pleased with the President’s announcement,” said Val Oliver, the organization’s founding director. “Our organization has been primarily focused on the harm these projects inflict upon our ocean and upon animals like the North Atlantic right whale. However, there are many other negative impacts from these projects as well. We have long cited the very real threat from radar interference caused by these enormous offshore wind turbines. Not only does this pose a danger to fishermen and others on the water, but this obviously also poses a massive national security threat. It is very satisfying that this threat is finally being recognized and acted upon.”

Not everyone has responded as positively. Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey, a proponent of offshore wind, called Trump’s move “unlawful.”

“Energy costs are already too high. It makes absolutely no sense for the Trump Administration to halt construction on a project that is bringing more affordable energy to our region. This puts people out of work during the holidays,” Healey said in a statement. “It is dangerous to halt construction in the middle of a project, and I will stand up against this unlawful action by the Trump Administration to protect Massachusetts’ ratepayers and workers. We are working closely with impacted states and developers to ensure the projects are completed and continue to provide affordable power to our communities.”

Environmental organizations and wind energy advocacy groups echoed those sentiments and sharply criticized the Trump administration for its latest - and perhaps most significant - salvo against the nascent offshore wind industry.

“This is a desperate rerun of the Trump administration’s failed attempt to kill offshore wind – an effort the courts have already rejected,” said Kate Sinding Daly, senior vice president for law and policy at the Conservation Law Foundation. “Many of these clean energy projects passed years of rigorous review, were upheld in court, and are moving forward. Trying again to halt these projects tramples on the rule of law, threatens jobs, and deliberately sabotages a critical industry that strengthens, not weakens, America’s energy security. At a time when climate change itself poses one of the greatest national security threats we face, blocking clean energy projects is reckless and dangerous.”

This is not the first time Trump has invoked national security concerns in his campaign against offshore wind. In the executive order that paused new leases for wind farms across the United States, Trump cited unspecified “national security interests” to justify the pause. His administration has also previously referred to national security in pausing construction on wind farms, including Revolution Wind.

The Trump administration has been vague about the national security concerns posed by offshore wind, referring to classified reports not available to the public, but did cite an unclassified report claiming that the turbines create radar interference known as clutter.

A report released by the Department of Energy says that “the clutter created by wind turbines typically increases the false alarm detection rate of a radar…potentially impacting their ability to perform their mission” when placed directly in the radar’s line of sight, and that “to date, no mitigation technology has been able to fully restore the technical performance of impacted radars.”

The year-old report did not initially spark the Trump administration to halt offshore wind, and the issue of radar interference has been discussed for years, with some experts minimizing the issue and other reports suggesting it could have a major impact on the offshore wind industry.

Some national security experts have disputed the administration’s claims about the impact of offshore wind on national security.

National security expert and former Commander of the USS Cole Kirk Lippold told the Associated Press and the New York Times that “the record of decisions all show that the Department of Defense was consulted at every stage of the permitting process,” and argued that the projects would benefit national security because they would diversify the country’s energy supply.

A 2020 report released by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management found that Vineyard Wind would have a “moderate” impact on radar, primarily on SeaSonde radar used to measure coastal ocean currents. It did not project any impact on the Air Route Surveillance or NEXRAD Radars used by the Department of Defense, as it found no such radar within the project’s line of sight.

The only two wind farms off the east coast of the United States that are not affected by the Trump administration's pause are the fully operational Block Island Wind, off Rhode Island, and South Fork Wind, off New York. Neither is close to Nantucket.