Wind Developers Allege the Trump Administration Never Gave Them Warnings of ‘National Security’ Concerns

Wind developers were blindsided by President Donald Trump’s decision to pause major offshore wind projects on national security grounds.

One company, Orsted, which is developing Revolution Wind in Rhode Island alongside the company Skyborn Renewables, said in new court filings against the Trump administration that it met with the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement — an Interior Department subagency — just six days before Interior Secretary Doug Burgum announced the 90-day pause.

The BSEE “never raised any national security concerns” during that meeting or other recent routine meetings, Orsted said in the filing.

Burgum announced on Dec. 22 that the agency would halt five offshore leases for 90 days and reconsider the projects, several of which were more than halfway completed, because of concerns about how turbines interfered with radar systems. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, the entity responsible for offshore energy leasing, issued individual stop-work orders to the project developers the same day.

“The Second Stop Work Order … was issued without notice or a hearing and it offers no reasoning other than a conclusory assertion of ‘impacts to national security from offshore wind projects’ — a topic that was comprehensively addressed during the Project’s approval process,” Revolution Wind developers said in the lawsuit.

Interior Department spokesperson Matt Middleton said in a statement to NOTUS that “offshore wind has proven to be a costly experiment that has driven up energy bills for American families.”

“The pause on large-scale offshore wind construction is a decisive step to protect America’s security, prevent conflicts with military readiness and maritime operations, and ensure responsible stewardship of our oceans,” Middleton said. “We will not sacrifice national security or economic stability for projects that make no sense for America’s future.”

The Department of Defense did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Trump administration previously issued a stop-work order in August for Orsted’s Rhode Island project but it was lifted by a federal judge in September. The administration issued a similar stop-work order to Empire Wind, a New York project, which it has since lifted. A federal judge in December in a separate case deemed the administration’s earlier sweeping attempt to halt all offshore wind projects unlawful.

Now, Orsted and two other wind companies — Equinor, which is developing the Empire Wind project in New York, and Dominion Energy, which is developing the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project — are arguing that the administration’s newest attempt at the same effort is also unlawful and riddled with contradictions. In all, two lawsuits filed this year and a new filing in a lawsuit from last year allege that the Interior Department did not provide advance notice before pausing or cancelling leases, and was going back against previous approvals.

Equinor said in its lawsuit that the federal government provided no indication since 2020 that the project’s approach to national security was lacking, including in a meeting with the Defense Department just 10 days before the administration’s stop-work order.

“Since construction of the Project began, Empire Wind has not received notice from

[the Defense Department] or the Navy regarding any adverse impacts to national security caused by the Project’s construction,” the company’s filings said.

The Revolution Wind filings also said that the federal government’s defense entities did not initiate any of the mechanisms that the company agreed to in its agreement with the Defense Department in 2024 about mitigating radar interference.

The projects’ leases stipulate that the federal government must make “every effort possible” to provide developers with “as much advance notice as possible of the need to suspend operations” but BOEM did not abide by those terms in issuing its December order, the developers all argued in separate filings that totaled more than 100 pages.

The leases also stipulate that a national-security-related pause on a project should typically not last more than 72 hours — a timeframe that the Trump administration is far exceeding with its 90-day period plus its suggestion that it may further extend the pause.

In the lawsuits, the developers outlined how they all participated in multiyear review processes that accounted for national security concerns, including by developing strategies alongside the Defense Department, the North American Aerospace Defense Command and other defense entities to mitigate potential effects of the projects on radar systems.

The strategies include controlling electromagnetic emissions from the wind projects and contributing funds to technology that lessens radar interference from wind farms.

These mitigation strategies were part of the Interior Department’s conditions for approving the developers’ leases, but the warnings and preemptive steps outlined in the strategies were not invoked before the Trump administration paused the projects in December, the developers claim in the filings.

All three developers argued in the filings that they conducted series of reviews with agencies across multiple presidential administrations — including, in some cases, the first Trump administration — to account for the effects their projects would have on national security. Equinor called it a “no-stone-unturned” process and said it cost the company hundreds of millions of dollars.

At least two of the companies also alleged in the court filings that the Trump administration’s claims that the pause was spurred by “recently completed classified reports” was unfounded.

In its stop-work orders to each of the developers, BOEM cited “classified information” it obtained in November as the driving force behind the pause.

“Based on BOEM’s initial review of this classified information, the particularized harm posed by this project can only be feasibly averted by suspension of on-lease activities,” each of the five letters said.

Dominion Energy said in its filings that “certain [company] officials have security clearances to receive and review classified information, yet never were afforded such an opportunity prior to issuance of the Order.”

The judge in Dominion Energy’s case ordered the administration to submit the classified documents that spurred the stop-work orders to the court by the end of this week, and the Interior Department also said in the Revolution Wind case that it would turn over the classified information to the court.

But the Trump administration would not commit to also providing the classified information to wind-company employees with security clearances.

The federal government’s mention of classified information has also prompted criticism from some lawmakers, including Rep. Dan Goldman, a Democrat from New York who asked in a letter last month to see the information in question and demanded a classified briefing with the Interior and Defense departments about the pause.

Goldman’s office did not respond to a question from NOTUS about whether the congressman received the materials.

All three filings also echo arguments that wind energy developers have previously levied against the administration, including that its targeting of wind energy is disparate given that the federal government has not made attempts to stop or pause oil, gas and other forms of energy development.

The filings all cite comments made by various Trump administration officials in the days after the December pause, in which the officials focused on affordability and reliability concerns — not national security concerns — related to wind energy. The wind developers argued in court documents that the comments are proof that the administration’s decision was politically motivated.

The five projects affected by the pause are at various stages, with Revolution Wind almost 90% complete and Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind set to start operating this year. Some projects, like Empire Wind, are at earlier stages, and have not yet installed turbines or other infrastructure that could impact radar, according to the company’s filings.

The companies underscored financial losses in their court documents.

Revolution Wind could suffer losses of more than $1 million per day because of the stop-work order and Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind could see losses of $5 million per day, the developers said.