A federal judge ruled Tuesday that the Trump administration can reconsider a major environmental permit for SouthCoast Wind, a proposed project near Massachusetts.
The decision marks yet another blow to the offshore wind industry, and reinforces a sense of uncertainty for all energy developers, who in the past, have been able to rely on a final federal permit being, in fact, final.
In a five page order, Judge Tanya S. Chutkan, an Obama appointee to the U.S. District Court in Washington D.C., said the Trump administration could take a second look at the project’s Construction and Operations Plan. The COP, as it’s typically called, is the last big permit an offshore wind projects needs before it can begin construction. SouthCoast Wind’s permit was issued in January, just days before Trump resumed office.
In September, Trump administration officials with the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management said they had “determined that the COP approval may not have fully complied with the law regulating the use of federal waters over the outer continental shelf,” and asked the court for permission to review the permit. After the review, the government said it would decide whether to re-approve the permit or deny it.
Though SouthCoast Wind objected to the motion, arguing that the project had undergone an extensive four-year permitting process and that the government had failed to present a “substantial and legitimate” justification for reviewing the permit, the court ultimately sided with the administration.
“Federal Defendants assert that they have identified potential issues with the analysis
underlying their original decision and credibly assert that their reconsideration may well amount to ‘a complete reversal of course,’ ” Chutkan wrote in the ruling.
She added that her job was to weigh the government’s request against any “immediate and significant” harm to the project. SouthCoast Wind has effectively been on hold since Trump took office, and she concluded that allowing the agency to reconsider the permit wouldn’t cause the project developers to “suffer immediate and significant hardship.”
In a statement, SouthCoast Wind CEO Michael Brown said he was “disappointed” and had serious concerns about the decision.
“We are currently assessing the implications of the decision and will consider all appropriate next steps, including the pursuit of legal remedies, to ensure the project’s integrity and its long-term contribution to regional and national energy goals,” he said.
In a court filing earlier this year, Brown said the company had invested more than $600 million in the project.
“When making these investment decisions, SouthCoast Wind understandably expected that the federal government would follow valid statutes and regulations setting out criteria for issuance of permits,” he wrote.
If built, SouthCoast Wind would consist of 141 turbines capable of generating up to 2,400 megawatts of power — approximately what’s needed to power 1.4 million homes in the region. Its first phase, SouthCoast Wind 1, would generate 1,087 megawatts for Massachusetts and 200 megawatts for Rhode Island, though the states have yet to finalize those contracts. The second phase, SouthCoast Wind 2, is still in the early stages of development.
The town of Nantucket, which is a party in the legal proceeding over SouthCoast Wind, cheered the judge’s decision, writing in a statement that “the Court’s ruling affirms the Town’s long-standing position that the federal government must take a hard look at potential flaws in the environmental and cultural analysis underpinning offshore wind permitting decisions.”
Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey, meanwhile criticized the ruling.
“New England needs this power, to lower costs and for reliability,” she said. “There is absolutely no need for the Trump Administration to reopen permitting processes.”
Kate Sinding Daly, senior vice president for law and policy at the Conservation Law Foundation, said she found Chutkan’s decision “surprising.”
“This project underwent a years-long extensive and thorough review by the Biden administration,” she said. Revisiting that review “creates a kind of uncertainty that is not good for any business in this country, whether it’s offshore wind or anything else.”
Sinding Daly, who supports the development of offshore wind, said she remains confident the industry will move forward in the long run.
“While court decisions and political attacks may create delays, they cannot change the fact that offshore wind is essential and inevitable if we are to meet our climate goals, strengthen our economy, and ensure energy security for our communities,” she wrote. “We remain hopeful that the developers will hang in there until sanity returns to Washington, and we can move forward with these unquestionably crucial projects.”
Since entering the White House in January, Trump — a long-time offshore wind critic — has taken several actions aimed at stopping the industry. He paused all new permitting, ordered a broad review of how the government assesses projects and eliminated import tax credits for developers. His administration also issued two stop-work orders for fully permitted projects, though one of those orders was later reversed and the other was blocked by a court.
In September, the Trump administration moved to revoke the COP for another offshore wind project near Maryland, and it has suggested that it intends to the do the same for New England Wind 1 and 2, a pair of offshore wind projects near Massachusetts. As with SouthCoast Wind, the administration can ask judges for permission to revoke the projects’ permits because they are the subject of ongoing litigation.
Nantucket sued the federal government earlier this year for approving SouthCoastWind’s COP. The town argued that the government failed to comply with federal environmental and historical preservation laws.
Instead of defending the Biden-era decision, the Trump administration used the lawsuit as an opportunity “to reverse approvals by its predecessor,” said Timothy Fox, managing director at ClearView Energy Partners, an independent research firm that tracks offshore wind projects.
“Offshore wind opponents may cheer yesterday’s ruling, but they may be less gleeful if a future administration with different energy priorities relies on the same strategy to reverse course on project permits that they support,” he said.
Last month, a major oil executive criticized the Trump administration’s attacks on permitted offshore wind projects.
“I think uncertainty in the regulatory environment is very damaging,” Shell USA President Colette Hirstius told the Financial Times. “However far the pendulum swings one way, it’s likely that it’s going to swing just as far the other way.”
This article was originally published on WBUR.org.
Copyright 2025 WBUR