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Last Updated on: 17th April 2025, 02:59 pm
When the malevolently incompetent Commander-in-Chief who occupies the Oval Office targeted the domestic offshore wind industry for annihilation, he did not merely choke off thousands of jobs and career opportunities all over the country. In the latest development, the self-described Fertilization President also made it clear that the US government is not a reliable business partner, shutting the door on billions of investor dollars. What was that again about making America great, again?
Update: According to the organization Oceantic Network, 102 US companies hold a total of 112 contracts for Empire Wind. The projects supply chain spans more than 23 states and supports more than 3,500 jobs. ‘Empire Wind’s supply chain has brought more than $1.6 billion in investments to the U.S. This includes substantial investments in Texas, South Carolina, Louisiana, Ohio, and Kansas,’ the organization also notes.
The US Offshore Wind Industry Was All Dressed Up And Ready To Go
In the years before Trump took office in January, offshore wind activity was humming along the Atlantic coast, the result of a years-long effort to foster a significant new economic opportunity for the nation.
Back in the early 2000s, there was no bespoke process for obtaining an offshore lease area in US waters. The US Army Corps of Engineers was initially tasked with approving offshore leases. The ill-fated Cape Wind project was the first and only project to go through USACE, in a tortured process that ultimately failed after a years-long effort.
With the intent of de-risking the lease application process for investors, responsibility for administering a permanent lease program was transferred to the Department of the Interior, which was ready to take up the task by 2012 through its Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.
Despite the support of former President Obama, the US offshore wind industry got off to a slow start during his time in office. Slow-walking on the part of state officials along the Atlantic coast (looking at you, Chris Christie) did not help matters.
Trump’s first turn in office did not promise much, either, but BOEM was still an active agency, and it used the opportunity to continue issuing leases. As a result, by the time former President Biden took office in January of 2021, domestic and global investors were assured that an offshore permit meant what it said, and business began booming.
“Under the Biden-Harris administration, the Department of the Interior has approved more than 15 GW of clean energy from ten offshore wind projects, enough to power nearly 5.25 million homes,” BOEM reported last November, right after Election Day.
The trade organization Oceantic Network also took the opportunity of the Election Day results to remind the incoming administration that the offshore wind industry has already accounted for $40 billion in new investments in the US, including $24 billion in supply chain and support services in 39 states, red and blue alike.
Bonkers Commander-In-Chief Sinks Entire US Offshore Wind Industry
Well, that was then. Trump fired the first shot across the bows of the domestic offshore wind industry upon taking office in January, when he suspended the federal lease program that enables domestic and global wind developers to claim sites in US coastal waters.
That step alone was enough to alarm offshore wind investors about the reliability of the new administration. Another alarm bell went off last month, when the Trump administration took the unprecedented step of revoking the final permit for the Atlantic Shores project, off the coast of New Jersey. The permit was revoked before Atlantic Shores began construction, but the action sent a clear signal to investors about the finality of “final” permits issued by the US government.
As if that signal wasn’t clear enough, yesterday the Trump administration took the even much more unprecedented step of ordering work to stop on Empire Wind, a project of the Norwegian firm Equinor under off the coast of New York. Equinor won the Empire Wind lease back in 2017 — that’s right, during Trump’s first administration — and construction began last year.
Whelp, there goes the wind farm — and there goes Equinor’s $5 billion investment in a new US onshore wind hub, located at the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal in New York City. The sprawling 73-acre site was absolutely swarming with people, trucks, equipment, materials, and other signs of gainful employment earlier this year, when I got an up-top view of the action from a nearby building (see photo above).
US Offshore Wind Industry Will Rise From The Ashes, Eventually
It’s difficult to imagine all that activity evaporating for no legitimate reason, and it’s not. At least, not yet. According to reporting by Reuters, Equinor intends to continue working on the Brooklyn site.
“We have decided to stop offshore construction of the project following the order,” an Equinor spokesperson told Reuters, adding that the company will “engage with the administration to find out why the order was issued after we had received all the permits previously.”
No word yet on what Equinor’s investors think of all this. The company closed on debt financing for the Empire Wind project in January, just a few weeks before Trump took office. “Due to strong interest from lenders, the Empire Wind 1 project was able to secure competitive terms,” Equinor stated in a press release.
“The final group of lenders includes some of the most experienced lenders in the sector along with many of Equinor’s relationship banks,” the company emphasized.
Meanwhile, Over In Connecticut
For all their experience, the final group of lenders probably never experienced anything like this. Still, other offshore wind stakeholders in the US may be inclined to follow Equinor’s lead, and continue developing their onshore resources towards the day when Trump finally, peacefully leaves office in January of 2028, which is just around the corner.
The organization Connecticut Wind Collaborative, for example, has spent years gearing up to showcase its home state as the perfect place for investors to park their dollars in the US offshore wind industry, and they are not about to let all that hard work go to waste.
Earlier today, CWA released a first-of-its-kind regional offshore wind supply chain study under the title, “Connecticut Offshore Wind Supply Chain Assessment: Opportunities and Collaborative Efforts in the Northeast.” The study, a collaborative production of Xodus Group and The Pew Charitable Trusts, advises offshore policy makers on steps to bring in more investors, and more jobs, building on the activity already brewing in Connecticut.
“The assessment highlights that more than 50 Connecticut companies are already contributing to active offshore wind projects and port infrastructure development,” CWC explains. “An additional 450 companies have strong potential to enter the sector, with more than 130 possessing either previous offshore wind experience or applicable expertise needed in the offshore wind supply chain.”
Your move, Stable Genius.
Photo: The Trump administration issued a stop work order on the Empire Wind offshore wind project, potentially putting onshore jobs at risk as well (South Brooklyn Marine Terminal wind hub original photo by Tina Casey).
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