Trump Preparing Executive Order to Stop Offshore Wind Buildout on US East Coast

US President-elect Donald Trump is working on an executive order to stop offshore wind activities along the US East Coast. The directive is expected to be finalised within the first few months of Donald Trump’s administration, according to a press release from the office of the US Congressman Jefferson Van Drew who announced on 13 January he was working closely with the incoming US president on drafting the executive order.

“These offshore wind projects should have never been approved in the first place”, Van Drew said. “The Biden administration rammed them through the approval process without proper oversight, transparent lease agreements, or a full understanding of their devastating consequences.”

To remind, seven East Coast offshore wind projects (in operation, under construction, or yet to enter the construction phase), were granted construction permits by the Trump administration during his first presidential term.

These include the large-scale offshore wind projects that were awarded federal leases from 2017 to 2020: Kitty Hawk North (2017), Empire Wind (2017), Skipjack (2018), Beacon Wind (2019), SouthCoast Wind (2019), Vineyard Northeast (2019), and South Fork Wind (2020). The Biden administration has approved eleven further offshore wind lease permits.

According to Congressman Van Drew, the new executive order would not only halt offshore wind activities but also “lay the groundwork for permanent measures against the projects”.

“The Biden administration’s reckless green agenda put politics over people, and that ends now. President Trump is committed to stopping these harmful projects and is taking decisive action. This executive order is just the beginning. We will fight tooth and nail to prevent this offshore wind catastrophe from wreaking havoc on the hardworking people who call our coastal towns home”, Congressman Van Drew said.

The move was announced by Donald Trump on 7 January as well as during his presidential campaign in 2024. In May last year, the US president-elect said he would sign an executive order to stop offshore wind farms from being built in the US “on day one”. At a press conference earlier this month, Trump said his administration would introduce a new policy which would see no “windmills” being built in the US.

Several offshore wind projects are currently under construction or in the pre-construction phase in the US, including Vineyard Wind offshore Massachusetts, Empire Wind 1 offshore New York, and the country’s biggest (and one of the world’s biggest) offshore wind farm in construction, the 2.6 GW Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (CVOW) being built by Dominion Energy off Virginia Beach.