Trump Administration Files Appeal Against Court Ruling in Multi-State Offshore Wind Lawsuit

The US Department of Justice, Environment & Natural Resources Division, filed a Notice of Appeal on 17 February in the case in which a federal judge ruled in favour of 18 states that sued the Trump administration over the sweeping ban on wind energy projects.

In May 2025, seventeen US states and the District of Columbia filed a lawsuit against the Presidential Memorandum issued on 20 January (“Wind Order”), warning that the policy could seriously damage the wind industry and hinder progress on renewable energy.

In December 2025, United States District Judge of the District Court for the District of Massachusetts, Patti B. Saris, ruled in favour of the plaintiffs, declaring section two of the “Wind Order” unlawful, and vacated the order “in its entirety”. Section one of the order, which paused all wind energy leasing activities by federal agencies, remained in effect.

The summary judgment was made on 8 December, with the final judgment in the case filed on 18 December last year.

To remind, the 20 January Presidential Memorandum indefinitely halts all leasing on the US Outer Continental Shelf (OCS), and all federal approvals necessary for the development of onshore and offshore wind energy projects.

According to Section 1 of the order, the withdrawal of the OCS areas does not apply to leasing related to other purposes, including oil, gas, minerals, and environmental conservation, and it does not affect rights under existing leases in the withdrawn areas. Section 2 discontinues the issuance of new or renewed approvals, rights of way, permits, leases, or loans for onshore and offshore wind projects until “a comprehensive assessment and review of Federal wind leasing and permitting practices” is completed.

After the order took effect on 21 January, fully permitted projects, including those under construction, were not expected to be affected. However, the US government paused construction activities on Empire Wind 1 in April last year, before the multi-state lawsuit, and then halted Revolution Wind, which was at 80 per cent of completion at the time, in August 2025.

For Empire Wind 1, paused in April 2025, the US Secretary of the Interior said that the project had been halted “until further review of information that suggests the Biden administration rushed through its approval without sufficient analysis”. The project was allowed to resume construction in May 2025, after a dialogue between the state and federal officials.

For Revolution Wind, when its construction was paused for the first time in August 2025, after the multi-state lawsuit was already filed, the Acting Director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) stated that the halt would allow time for BOEM “to address concerns that have arisen during the review that the Department is undertaking pursuant to the President’s Memorandum of January 20, 2025”.

In that stop-work order, BOEM also said it was particularly focused on addressing “concerns related to the protection of national security interests of the United States and prevention of interference with reasonable uses of the exclusive economic zone, the high seas, and the territorial seas”, as described in the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA).

Both projects were again paused on 22 December 2025, a few days after the final judgment by the federal court, as the Department of the Interior (DOI) issued a stop-work order for all offshore wind farms under construction, citing a review focused on national security following a classified report from the US Department of War (formerly known as Department of Defense).

Five projects where construction was underway were paused, including the biggest US offshore wind farm, Dominion Energy’s Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (CVOW), and Vineyard Wind 1, which was one turbine away from a full array when the pause was ordered.

Since the issuance of the stop-work order on 22 December 2025, all five projects initiated legal actions against the move and all five were granted a preliminary injunction by federal courts that allowed them to resume construction activities.