By Rosemary
A federal judge in Boston ruled Tuesday that a nearly completed offshore wind project off the coast of Massachusetts may continue construction and operations, marking another setback for the Trump administration’s effort to halt large-scale wind developments along the East Coast.
U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy granted Vineyard Wind’s request to block a federal stop-work order, finding that pausing the project would likely cause substantial economic harm and that the developers have a strong chance of prevailing in their legal challenge. The decision allows Vineyard Wind to move forward while litigation over the administration’s broader policy continues.
Vineyard Wind is one of five major offshore wind projects that the administration ordered to stop just days before Christmas, citing unspecified national security concerns. It is now the fourth of those projects to be allowed to proceed after federal judges concluded that the government failed to demonstrate an immediate or concrete threat requiring construction to halt.
In a statement, Vineyard Wind spokesperson Craig Gilvarg said the company would continue engaging with federal officials to address the issues raised by the administration. He said Vineyard Wind would work closely with contractors, regulators and other stakeholders to safely restart activities and continue delivering new electricity to the New England power grid.
The legal challenge to the administration’s order was brought by developers and several states, which argued that the sudden freeze threatened billions of dollars in investment, thousands of jobs and regional energy reliability.
Prior to the Vineyard Wind ruling, judges had already cleared three other projects to resume construction: the Revolution Wind project serving Rhode Island and Connecticut, developed by Danish firm Orsted; the Empire Wind project for New York, led by Norway’s Equinor; and the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project developed by Dominion Energy Virginia.
Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond who has closely followed the cases, said the rulings share a common theme. Judges have consistently found that the federal government has not shown that its asserted national security concerns pose an imminent danger that justifies stopping projects already deep into construction.
A fifth project, Orsted’s Sunrise Wind development for New York, remains paused while litigation continues. That case has not yet had a court hearing.
Vineyard Wind, a joint venture between Avangrid and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, is located roughly 15 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket. According to court filings, the project is about 95% complete and partially operational, already capable of delivering nearly 600 megawatts of electricity to the New England grid.
Before the stop-work order, developers expected the project to be fully completed by the end of March, with 62 turbines generating a total of 800 megawatts—enough power for approximately 400,000 homes.
Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell welcomed the ruling, saying completion of the project is critical to the state’s ability to control energy costs, meet growing demand, achieve climate goals and support thousands of well-paying jobs tied to the offshore wind industry.
The administration’s original announcement freezing construction did not publicly spell out its national security rationale. In court filings, however, Matthew Giacona, acting director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, said he reviewed classified materials in November that described potential national security impacts from operating offshore wind projects near early-warning monitoring and radar systems.
Giacona said he concluded that Vineyard Wind’s ongoing activities did not sufficiently protect national security interests without additional mitigation measures. Given the project’s advanced stage, the bureau allowed Vineyard Wind to continue limited operations while consultations took place with defense officials and project owners. He added that he was not aware of any measures that would fully mitigate the perceived risks.
President Donald Trump has been openly hostile to offshore wind since returning to the White House, repeatedly criticizing wind farms as costly, unreliable and harmful to the environment. He has described wind energy as wasteful and has argued it damages landscapes and wildlife.
Energy researchers dispute many of those claims. Studies from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory show that states with significant wind and solar generation often have relatively low electricity prices, helped in part by federal tax incentives. The research also found that electricity prices can rise in states that adopt aggressive, binding renewable mandates, though analysts note those increases reflect broader policy choices rather than wind power alone.
Environmental groups acknowledge that wind turbines, like other large infrastructure, can pose risks to birds but say those impacts can be managed through careful siting and technology. They argue that climate change poses a far greater long-term threat to wildlife.
The White House has defended the construction pause as necessary to protect national security. A spokesperson said the administration is acting in the interest of public safety and reiterated Trump’s position that wind energy is fundamentally flawed.
The Vineyard Wind project has also drawn criticism from Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has pointed to a blade failure that occurred in July 2024. During that incident, fiberglass fragments from a damaged turbine blade washed onto Nantucket beaches at the height of the tourist season. Manufacturer GE Vernova later agreed to pay $10.5 million to compensate island businesses affected by the debris.
Members of the Kennedy family have long opposed offshore wind development near Cape Cod, including a separate project that was proposed years earlier and ultimately failed.
With construction now cleared to resume, Vineyard Wind’s developers say they are focused on completing one of the nation’s first utility-scale offshore wind farms, even as the broader political and legal battle over offshore wind energy continues to play out in federal courts.
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