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offshore wind
Watchdog Warns Trump and Burgum's Halting of Offshore Wind Projects Is Illegal
“Burgum’s actions on offshore wind appear to be motivated by the personal financial interests of those in the administration, not our collective national interests."
Dec 29, 2025
A week after the US Department of the Interior said it was immediately halting five offshore wind projects in the interest of "national security," a watchdog group told congressional committees Monday that the move is "not legally defensible" and raises "significant" questions about conflicts of interest concerning a top DOI official's investments in fossil gas.
Timothy Whitehouse, executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), wrote to the top members of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and the House Committee on Natural Resources regarding the pause on projects off the coasts of Virginia, New York, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Massachusetts—projects that account for billions of dollars in investment, employ thousands of people, and generate sustainable energy for roughly 2.5 million homes and businesses.
The announcement made by Interior Secretary Doug Burgum last week pertained to "five vague, perfunctory, cookie-cutter orders" halting the projects, wrote Whitehouse, but PEER is concerned that the orders were issued to evade the Congressional Review Act (CRA), under which the action to halt the projects likely constitutes a "major rule."
Whitehouse explained:
Under the CRA, a rule that meets any one of three criteria (an annual effect on the economy of $100,000,000 or more; a major increase in costs or prices for consumers, individual industries, federal, state, or local government agencies, or geographic regions; or in pertinent part significant adverse effects on competition, employment, investment, productivity, or innovation) is a major rule. Interior’s pause likely meets all three.
As a major rule under the CRA, the pause cannot take effect until at least 60 days after BOEM provides Congress the requisite notification and report under the CRA, which, according to GAO’s database, has not yet occurred. Congress must use its oversight authority to unveil the truth and, as appropriate, and to enforce the rule of law.
He said in a statement that “Burgum’s move is designed to bypass all congressional and public input."
The CRA states that a rule is "the whole or a part of an agency statement of general or particular applicability and future effect designed to implement, interpret, or prescribe law or policy or describing the organization, procedure, or practice requirements of an agency.”
Press statements by the DOI and by Burgum last week were "statements of general applicability and imminent future effect, designed to implement policy," wrote Whitehouse, who also said the interior secretary embarked on "a coordinated rollout with Fox News entities."
On December 22, Fox anchor Maria Bartiromo asked Burgum at 8:00 am Eastern, “What next action did you want to tell us about this morning?” Five minutes later, FoxNews.com published its first story on Burgum's orders, citing a press release that had not yet been made public and including a quote from the secretary about the "emerging national security risk" posed by the offshore wind projects.
"If last week’s actions are allowed to stand, future presidents will have unchecked authority under the guise of national security to target federal leases related to entire disfavored energy industries for political purposes."
Burgum's announcement to Fox came at least one to two hours before Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) acting Director Matthew Giacona provided the orders to the lessees running the five wind projects.
Further, wrote Whitehouse, "Burgum’s voluminous public comments in the hours and days since the pause further show the true purpose of Interior’s singular action."
"The national security pretext quickly gives way to broad and spurious talking points about the 'Green New Scam,' how 'wind doesn’t blow 24-7' (evincing Burgum’s seeming unfamiliarity with energy storage technologies), and unyielding promotion of liquified natural gas projects," wrote Whitehouse.
Aside from the alleged illegality of Burgum's order, PEER pointed to Giacona's potential conflicts of interest with BOEM operations and specifically with halting wind projects. Giacona is a "diligent filer" of financial disclosure forms required by the Ethics in Government Act, noted Whitehouse—but those forms point to potential benefits he may reap from shutting down offshore wind infrastructure.
Giacona reported his purchase of interests in the United States Natural Gas Fund (UNG) on September 16. The fund tracks daily price movements of "natural" gas delivered at the Henry Hub in Louisiana and is subject to regulation by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
"Accordingly, a government employee who has an interest in UNG also has a potential conflict of interest with the underlying holdings of UNG (currently primarily natural gas futures contracts at the Henry Hub)," wrote Whitehouse.
PEER does not know whether Giacona continues to hold a financial interest in UNG or whether the offshore wind pause will have a "direct and predictable effect on a financial interest in UNG," but Whitehouse noted that Burgum and DIO have entwined the pause with the promotion of liquefied natural gas.
"It is disconcerting that Mr. Giacona temporarily had even a de minimis financial interest in natural gas futures while also leading the agency that manages the development of natural gas resources on the outer continental shelf," wrote Whitehouse, adding that Giacona also sold interests in the United States Oil Fund on September 3, while overseeing BOEM.
Based on Giacona's investments, said Whitehouse, “Burgum’s actions on offshore wind appear to be motivated by the personal financial interests of those in the administration, not our collective national interests. This is another misguided step in transforming the federal government into a franchise of the fossil fuel industry.”
“On public lands across the United States, the Department of the Interior has tens of thousands of additional active leases related to oil, gas, wind, solar, and geothermal production and mining for energy-related minerals," he added. "If last week’s actions are allowed to stand, future presidents will have unchecked authority under the guise of national security to target federal leases related to entire disfavored energy industries for political purposes."
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Clean Energy Bright Spots in a Trump-Clouded Year
Clean energy is strong. And in 2025, it showed its strength in some really notable ways, as momentum, economics, policies, and people carried clean energy progress forward, despite it all.
Dec 27, 2025
To claim that 2025 in the United States has been one for the history books may be the understatement of the year. So many unprecedented things have happened, that historians will have no shortage of harrowing lessons to be learned from this era.
In the clean energy space, the Trump administration launched attack after attack to slow down the clean energy in favor of fossil fuels, killing projects, investments, and jobs. By rescinding clean energy funding, pushing to abolish tax credits, coordinating across the administration to interfere with wind and solar, and so much more, they’ve set us up for bitter harvests for years to come.
And yet…
Clean energy is strong. And in 2025, it showed its strength in some really notable ways, as momentum, economics, policies, and people carried clean energy progress forward, despite it all. And it seems all the more important to celebrate it this year.
So, here are clean energy bright spots worthy of resounding cheers.
Powering Up
One pillar of progress has been growth in renewable energy capacity, for more clean electricity and all the other benefits clean energy brings. And one clear shining star for 2025 is the US solar sector:
- 2025 looks set to land just a hair’s breadth away from breaking the record for new US solar installations set in 2024. Texas continued to be the leader in new solar, followed by California and—wait for it—Indiana (up from 15th two years ago). Overall, July to September 2025 was the third best quarter ever for new solar installations.
- Solar accounted for almost 80% of new electrical generating capacity through September (and 58% of all new electrical capacity, with energy storage included).
- All that installation progress helped push solar electricity to new heights: Solar generation from January to September 2025 was 29% higher than in the same period in 2024.
- US solar manufacturing also grew: Module manufacturing capacity increased 42% over the first three quarters of 2025, new capacity to make the solar cells that go into modules came to life in South Carolina, and new capacity to make the wafers that become the solar cells sprang forth in Michigan.
Energy storage was another fount of progress in 2025, with installations for the year projected to be more than 50% higher than in 2024, led by Texas, California, and Arizona.
All told, says the American Clean Power Association, 2025 looks “firmly on pace to surpass 2024 as the biggest clean power deployment year in history.”
Realizing Possibilities
Where solar, storage, and other clean energy technologies really shine is in what they make possible in electricity markets around the country. Some examples:
- In California, gas electricity generation has fallen as solar generation has risen, and solar in the state, up 13% year-over-year for the first three quarters of 2025, looked set to surpass gas on an annual basis for the first time.
- In Texas, where electricity demand is growing fastest, clean energy played a huge role in meeting that increased demand in 2025. Solar generation January-September was 42% higher than in the same period in 2024, and solar seems poised to overtake coal in the state in 2026. The grid operator covering most of the state reported having added 20 times as much battery, solar, and wind capacity as new gas in its service territory since last winter.
- In New England, having clean energy available to meet peaks in electricity demand helped send the region’s last coal plant out to pasture. New England solar generation was almost a fifth higher in Q1-Q3.
Even on the Water
Though the challenges were unprecedented for offshore wind, 2025 also brought noteworthy happenings in that space. Construction progressed on the next generation of projects, aimed at serving Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, Rhode Island, and Virginia, and several large-scale ones should reach full power in 2026 (if I didn’t just jinx it…). In service in Virginia to aid the work is the Charybdis, the brand-new wind turbine installation vessel that is the first built in the United States (Texas). Virginia’s offshore wind project will be one of the world’s largest when completed next year, capable of producing enough energy for more than 600,000 Virginian households.
Clean energy’s progress despite all that the Trump administration threw at it is notable, and it seems important to celebrate those accomplishments as we go into the new year.
As some of the Trump administration’s spurious excuses to halt under-construction offshore wind projects failed to stand up to legal scrutiny, the importance of offshore wind for economies—not just as a source of clean electrons—was even clearer than usual in the range of voices pushing back and speaking out in opposition to the administration’s monkeying. Those included labor unions, business networks, and even the Republican member of Congress for the Virginia project staging area and Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-La.).
Meanwhile, the first operating large-scale US offshore wind project, serving Long Island, showed strong results in its first year—including in the winter months, when offshore wind power comes in particularly handy. New England too was benefiting from offshore turbines, before the projects themselves even reached completion: Injections of electricity into the region’s grid led to wind generation from January to early December 2025 that was 26% higher than in the same period in 2024, and led in mid-December to a record for peak wind production that was 29% higher than 2024’s peak.
Lots More to Come
As technology moves forward, so do some leading states. Despite—or because of—the federal moves in the wrong direction, multiple states doubled down on their moves toward a clean energy economy in 2025. Maine, for example, committed to 100% clean electricity by 2040. California extended and strengthened its “cap and invest” program. Illinois passed a comprehensive clean energy package. And, because clean energy matters at all scales, it’s worth celebrating Michigan’s moves to make it easier for customers to connect distributed renewable energy systems (think rooftop solar) to the electric grid, and Utah’s embrace of balcony solar.
And there’s a lot more to come for clean energy, despite the even rougher seas ahead in the near term under this administration. Continuing affordability concerns will guide even some slow-to-come-around people to recognize solar and wind as often the cheapest source of new electricity generation. Decision-makers and the rest of us who care about good jobs and economic development will continue to push for more policies to accelerate the move to clean energy. Innovation, economies of scale in products and projects, and continued international progress will all make clean energy even more attractive.
There’s a lot about 2025 I’d really like to be able to undo, or forget. But clean energy’s progress despite all that the Trump administration threw at it is notable, and it seems important to celebrate those accomplishments as we go into the new year. Not least to keep reminding ourselves of the enormity of what’s already possible and what’s yielding dividends right now, today, and will be long into the future.
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What a GOP Government Will Really Mean for the Renewable Energy Rollout
If the next Trump administration is serious about pulling the plug on clean energy, that will add up to a lot of jobs and investments to undo in states and districts where the president-elect handily won the election.
Dec 18, 2024
For all that U.S. President-elect Donald Trump trashed renewable energy on the stump, much of his ranting may very well become a murmur when he returns to the Oval Office.
Obscured by his “green new scam” rhetoric is a mad scramble by his supporters in Congress to reap the economic benefits of green industry for their states and districts. The increasing investments, precisely in the places that voted for him, make President-elect Trump’s pledge to “terminate” many green programs political wolf talk. That is because the renewable energy industry is growing jobs more than twice as fast as the overall economy.
This acknowledgement from conservative lawmakers that clean energy and electric vehicles are good business makes it reasonable to bet that the investments they’ve secured for their districts will survive the president-elect’s rhetoric of a “green new scam.”
A lasting irony of the outgoing Biden administration will be how no Republican in Congress voted for the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). Yet 85% of the announced clean energy projects and 68% of the jobs triggered by the IRA, such as those related to electric vehicles, wind power, solar power, and battery storage, have gone to Republican-held congressional districts, according to E2, a nonpartisan group that monitors the clean energy industry.
The representatives of those districts see no apparent contradiction in touting the attractiveness of their areas for clean energy investments, while publicly supporting the president-elect’s rhetoric and proposals to end clean energy programs.
Love-Hate Relationships Abound
For instance, Texas Congressmember Jodey Arrington, who represents a House district that includes Lubbock and Abilene, called the IRA a “failed liberal spending spree that crippled our economy and left working American families worse off.” The Washington Post reported in October that Arrington’s district is the nation’s fifth-highest recipient of investments for clean energy and manufacturing, receiving nearly $5 billion.
Then there is Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn: a climate skeptic who says infrastructure projects that fight climate change are a “gateway to socialism.” She told the Republican National Convention this summer that the “green new scam” was “destroying small businesses.”
Huh? Relative to the size of the state’s economy (as measured by gross domestic product), Tennessee ranks first in the nation in clean technology manufacturing investment from the IRA, according to the Clean Investment Monitor, maintained by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research and the Rhodium Group.
Senator Blackburn seems well aware of it. Even before the IRA, when vehicle maker Ford cut the ribbon on a $5.6 billion electric battery plant in her state in 2021, she boasted how Tennessee is “leading the way for innovation” with a “historic project” that would directly create 5,800 jobs and create “countless opportunities in supporting industries.”
The champion of hypocrisy is Representative Richard Hudson, congressman for North Carolina’s Ninth District, nestled in the center of the state. In voting against the IRA, he blasted clean energy programs as “woke climate and social programs that won’t work.”
Hudson was wide awake for the money coming to his district to expand a massive Toyota battery plant for electric vehicles and hybrids. According to E2, Hudson’s district is top in the nation both for clean energy investment and for clean energy job growth triggered by the IRA. The Toyota plant alone promises more than 5,000 jobs. Estimates of investment in his district range from nearly $10 billion to nearly $13 billion.
Selective Cuts Desired
If the next Trump administration is serious about pulling the plug on clean energy, that will add up to a lot of jobs and investments to undo in states and districts where the president-elect handily won the election. North Carolina Representative Hudson hinted he agrees. When CNN asked him in June if he would vote to repeal the IRA if the Republicans won control of the federal government in the election—which they did—he responded, “Rather than try to repeal one big bill with another big bill, we ought to look at the individual policies.”
Another sign that Republicans ultimately won’t scrap all the benefits of the Inflation Reduction Act came in an August letter by 18 Republicans to House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.). The lawmakers asked Johnson to preserve clean energy tax credits in any effort to repeal or reform the IRA. The letter acknowledged that energy tax credits “have spurred innovation, incentivized investment, and created good jobs in many parts of the country—including many districts represented by members of our conference.”
The letter warned that repealing energy tax credits, especially those for projects that have already broken ground “would undermine private investments and stop development that is already ongoing.”
This acknowledgement from conservative lawmakers that clean energy and electric vehicles are good business makes it reasonable to bet that the investments they’ve secured for their districts will survive the president-elect’s rhetoric of a “green new scam.”
Risks to Offshore Wind Loom
Much less clear is the near-term future for offshore wind.
While campaigning, President-elect Trump promised to sign an executive order on the first day of his return to bring a halt to the offshore wind industry. Never mind that onshore wind is booming in red states in the windy, rural middle of the United States, providing 130,000 jobs. The fastest growing occupation in the nation is wind turbine service technician, paying an average of nearly $62,000 a year according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
According to the Energy Information Agency, the top four states for electricity generation from wind in 2023 were the red states of Texas, Iowa, Oklahoma, and Kansas.
In even more serious doubt is a just transition, where communities that suffer the most from fossil fuel production and pollution can get jobs, lower energy costs, and cleaner air from a move to renewables.
The offshore wind industry, a staple of energy generation in northern Europe, is still in its infancy in the United States. It remains highly vulnerable to price shocks, supply-chain issues, local opposition to siting, and being a political dartboard. The industry is currently centered in more liberal Northeastern states thanks to ideal water depths off the Atlantic coastline and forward-looking governors from Massachusetts to Virginia who have been competing the last two decades for ports and projects.
The U.S. has the technical capacity to harness three times more electricity from offshore wind than it currently uses today, with the Atlantic Ocean off the Northeast coast possessing some of the strongest wind speeds in the country.
Surprisingly, despite its “Drill, Baby, Drill” mantra for oil, the first Trump administration promoted offshore wind when it found out how much money the leases could put into federal coffers. It conducted a then-record auction for waters off Massachusetts to site off-shore wind projects. Ports and manufacturing facilities as far south as Louisiana, home state of House Speaker Mike Johnson, helped launch the nation’s first offshore wind farm in Rhode Island.
But that has not stopped oil and gas companies from continuing to conduct disinformation campaigns to stir up opposition to offshore wind. It is clear they have a lot to lose from a full-blown offshore wind industry in the Northeast. For example, gas accounts for at least half of the electricity generation in New England and New Jersey. New York City generates between 85% and 90% of its electricity from fossil fuels. The Northeast Gas Association boasts that about half the entire region gets its electricity from gas.
On the campaign trail, President-elect Trump elected to play off that disinformation. He attacked offshore wind with gale force lies about its impact on whales and the environment, claims which have zero science behind them as NOAA and others explain.
The unending verbal assault makes it reasonable to worry that under this second administration President-elect Trump may truly try to score political points by directing the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management to slow permitting of new projects and telling the Justice Department to side with opponents of incomplete projects. Many experts say that just the slowing of the permitting process risks making construction more expensive and may scare off investors.
Then There’s the Issue of Equity
In even more serious doubt is a just transition, where communities that suffer the most from fossil fuel production and pollution can get jobs, lower energy costs, and cleaner air from a move to renewables.
Almost by definition, the growth of clean energy industries in more sparsely populated, majority white, Republican-held districts may exacerbate the existing structural racism in the energy sector’s workforce, which has been a driver of the Biden administration’s goal of directing 40% of federal climate and clean energy investments to disadvantaged communities.
For instance, Black people are 13% of the nation’s workforce and account for only 8% of the solar and wind workforce, according to the Department of Energy. The Interstate Renewable Energy Council (IREC) says the percentage of Black solar workers has not budged since 2022. Yet, the second-fastest growing job in the nation, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, are solar panel installers, making on average $48,000 a year.
The percentage of people of color in leadership positions in the renewable energy supply chain is currently infinitesimally small. A 2022 report by the American Council on Renewable Energy found that of 658 manufacturers involved in utility-scale wind, solar, and battery storage, 1.8% were owned by people of color or women. And while there is one bright spot in diversity, with 33% of new clean energy jobs last year being filled by Latinos, 88% of solar industry executives are white and 80% are male, according to the IREC.
Only a quarter of solar firms in the IREC’s annual National Solar Jobs Census reported that they had strategies to hire more people of color or women.
With the return of President-elect Trump, accompanied now by Vice President-elect JD Vance, it will take maverick clean energy companies to improve diversity. Just this past June, Vance co-introduced (along with Senator Blackburn) a bill in the Senate to eliminate all federal diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs and funding for any entities that receive federal funding. Representatives Arrington and Hudson co-sponsored the measure in the House. Cynically twisting the purpose of DEI to ensure fair opportunities for people from historically excluded groups, Vice President-elect Vance claims DEI “breeds hatred and racial division.”
President-elect Trump himself has already begun to nominate members of his cabinet with direct ties to Project 2025, the de facto Republican Party platform that also calls for the elimination of DEI throughout government. Project 2025 explicitly calls for the end of DEI in the Energy Department and eliminating the Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights in the Environmental Protection Agency.
The pall placed over the nation is already being felt even before Inauguration Day, as Walmart recently announced it was rolling back DEI policies or dismantling DEI teams, joining companies like Ford, Boeing, Toyota, Lowe’s, Harley Davidson, Molson Coors, John Deere, and Tractor Supply. That follows the scores of universities that are eliminating DEI in the wake of the Supreme Court’s 2023 striking down of affirmative action. It was a ruling virtually assured by President Trump’s packing of the court in his first term.
In a blog last year on this flood of renewable money flowing into Republican districts from a Democratic-inspired law, I wrote that the nation would be so much stronger in the fight against climate change and the effort to clean up communities and boost the economy if conservatives would “drop the two-faced charade of climate denial while diving unabashedly into the pot of federal renewable incentives and tax breaks.” Now that the forces of climate denial have regained the White House and control of both chambers of Congress, they don’t even need two faces. They can just be bald-faced aggrandizers.
The renewable energy industry will indeed have a strong expansion in the U.S. It’s just that it will be heavily driven by a real green scam—an expansion being led by politicians who harness and hoard solar power, wind power, and electric vehicles for their own constituents, but deny it for everyone else.
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