Trump Administration Halts Five Major Offshore Wind Projects Amid National Security Concerns
By Eric Mack | Monday, 22 December 2025 09:45 AM EST
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum announced that five large offshore wind projects are being shelved by the Trump administration.
“Due to national security concerns identified by the Department of War, the Interior Department is pausing leases for five expensive, unreliable, heavily subsidized offshore wind farms,” Burgum stated Monday morning on X.
Burgum noted the inefficiency of wind power as artificial intelligence, Bitcoin, and data centers drive up energy demands.
“One natural gas pipeline supplies as much energy as these five projects combined. President Trump is bringing common sense back to energy policy and putting security first,” Burgum added.
During a televised interview earlier Monday morning, Burgum explained that Trump’s executive order to review offshore wind projects produced work from the Department of War showing “conclusively” that there are legitimate national security concerns over “radar interference,” which he described as “a genuine risk for the U.S.”
The five projects are close to “East coast population centers,” Burgum warned.
The five suspended leases will require some “mitigation” with the companies running the projects, which were “heavily subsidized” under former President Joe Biden’s administration, according to Burgum.
The pause will give relevant federal agencies “time to work with leaseholders and state partners to assess the possibility of mitigating the national security risks posed by these projects,” the Interior Department stated in a release.
The pause affects the following projects: GE Vernova’s Vineyard Wind 1, Danish energy firm Orsted’s Revolution Wind and Sunrise Wind, Dominion Energy’s Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind-Commercial, and Equinor’s Empire Wind 1.
Trump initiated the review on his first day in office, January 20, 2025, with an executive order titled “Temporary Withdrawal of All Areas on the Outer Continental Shelf from Offshore Wind Leasing and Review of the Federal Government’s Leasing and Permitting Practices for Wind Project.”
The order noted that “nothing in this withdrawal affects rights under existing leases in the withdrawn areas,” pointing to Monday’s result of the review Burgum announced.
“With respect to such existing leases, the Secretary of the Interior, in consultation with the Attorney General as needed, shall conduct a comprehensive review of the ecological, economic, and environmental necessity of terminating or amending any existing wind energy leases, identifying any legal bases for such removal, and submit a report with recommendations to the President through the Assistant to the President for Economic Policy.”
