The US Interior Department on Monday said it had paused all leases for offshore wind projects over unspecified national security risks, casting new doubt over the future of an industry detested by President Donald Trump.
The Republican president has long expressed opposition to windmills, particularly over their appearance, and his administration has made multiple attempts to limit their implementation during his second term.
The Interior Department said the move, which pauses leases “effectively immediately” for five projects under development in the Atlantic Ocean, came after the Pentagon identified “national security risks” in recently completed “classified” reports.
The pause would give government agencies “time to work with leaseholders and state partners to assess the possibility of mitigating the national security risks posed by these projects,” the Interior Department said in a statement.
However, in a statement on X, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum expressed more than just security concerns, bashing the projects as “expensive, unreliable, heavily subsidized offshore wind farms.”
“ONE natural gas pipeline supplies as much energy as these 5 projects COMBINED,” the former Republican governor wrote.
The five projects paused by the Interior Department were expected to power millions of homes and businesses along the Atlantic coast, and several are in advanced stages of construction.
Dominion Energy, which is behind a massive wind farm off the Virginia coast, said it had been ordered to suspend work for 90 days.
The Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind Project (CVOW) “has been more than ten years in the works, involved close coordination with the military, and is located…so far offshore it does not raise visual impact concerns,” Dominion said.
A project status timeline on the CVOW website said that all foundations for the wind turbines had been installed in October 2025.
Dominion warned that stopping the project will “lead to energy inflation and threaten thousands of jobs.”
– ‘Ugly monsters’ –
Trump has long complained that windmills ruin views and are expensive. During a trip this summer to one of his UK golf courses, the US president urged Britain to stop subsidizing the “ugly monsters.”
Shortly after his return to power in January, Trump moved to block all new permits for wind farms on federal lands and waters.
That ban was ruled illegal this month by a judge, but Trump’s animosity toward the industry has cast doubt over its long-term viability.
Trump’s administration has also moved to block all federal loans for wind energy.
Other projects targeted by Monday’s order include the Vineyard Wind project off Massachusetts, Revolution Wind off Rhode Island, and the New York-area Sunrise and Empire projects.
While the Interior Department did not specify what risks were outlined in the Pentagon’s classified reports, it said that the Department of Energy had previously identified issues with radar interference.
“We should not be kneecapping America’s largest source of renewable power, especially when we need more cheap, homegrown electricity,” the Environmental Defense Fund’s lead counsel Ted Kelly said in a statement.
New York’s Governor Kathy Hochul said on X that she was working with other impacted states “to review every available option to get these projects back on track.”
Dominion Energy’s stock price was down around 4.5 percent in afternoon trading on Wall Street, while Danish energy giant Orsted — behind the Revolution Wind project — was down 11 percent in Copenhagen.
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