Overview

Offshore Wind Leasing Moratorium

The memorandum rested on two main legal and policy mechanisms. First, President Trump invoked his authority under Section 12(a) of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act to withdraw the entire OCS from availability for wind energy leasing. Second, he directed the Secretary of the Interior and other relevant agency heads to temporarily cease leasing and permitting activities for offshore and onshore wind projects, pending a "comprehensive assessment and review of Federal wind leasing and permitting practices." The temporary halt applied to the issuance of new or renewed approvals, rights of way, permits, leases, and loans for wind projects.

The withdrawal was for an indefinite period. The memorandum mandated the Interior Secretary, in consultation with the Attorney General, to conduct a full review of the ecological, economic, and environmental necessity of terminating or amending existing wind energy leases. The Interior Secretary was to lead the comprehensive assessment in consultation with relevant executive agencies, though no deadline was given for completing it. The assessment was to consider the environmental impact on wildlife, the economic costs of intermittent electricity generation, and the effect of subsidies on the wind industry's viability.

While the memorandum prohibited new or renewed wind energy leases on the OCS, it did not immediately affect existing leases. It did, however, direct the Secretary of the Interior to review existing offshore wind energy leases and consider legal bases to terminate or amend them. That directive had immediate practical consequences for projects already under development.

The Department of the Interior subsequently issued three secretarial orders to implement the permitting freeze ordered by the memorandum and to revise the agency's treatment of wind projects in permitting and other processes. A July 15, 2025, secretarial order issued by DOI's Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy mandated that all decisions, actions, consultations, and other undertakings related to wind and solar energy facilities require submission to the Office of the Executive Secretariat and Regulatory Affairs, subsequent review by the Office of the Deputy Secretary, and final review by the Office of the Secretary — a requirement that did not apply to other energy facilities.

On August 5, 2025, the DOI rescinded 3.5 million acres of designated offshore wind energy areas, canceled the lease sale schedule, halted work on Empire Wind and Revolution Wind, and asked courts to reconsider approvals for Maryland Offshore Wind, South Coast, and New England Wind. On December 22, 2025, DOI suspended the leases for five fully-permitted, large-scale offshore wind projects under construction: Empire Wind, Revolution Wind, Sunrise Wind, Vineyard Wind, and Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind.

Significance and Impact

The actions undercut the Biden administration's prior efforts to boost offshore wind generation, which had included an ambitious goal of 30 gigawatts of offshore wind in the United States by 2030. The moratorium effectively froze federal machinery at a moment when the offshore wind industry was beginning to scale up in the United States, raising questions about the viability of projects far beyond those directly targeted.

Some observers noted broader challenges to the offshore wind industry that executive actions could exacerbate, related to global financial and supply chain difficulties for offshore wind and the challenge of establishing the nascent industry in the United States, including capacity for equipment manufacturing, support vessels, and skilled labor. The administration's actions compounded existing market headwinds, creating a more hostile environment for investment decisions.

The memorandum created significant risks and increased uncertainty for project developers, investors, lenders, buyers, and sellers of offshore and onshore wind projects. Several lease holders chose to exit entirely. In arrangements similar to an earlier agreement with TotalEnergies, some leaseholders relinquished their leases, with the United States making payments to companies totaling approximately $900 million, in exchange for commitments to invest in oil and gas, energy infrastructure, and liquefied natural gas projects.

Reactions and Debate

On May 5, 2025, seventeen states and the District of Columbia sued under the Administrative Procedure Act, challenging the presidential memorandum. The coalition, led by New York, argued that the administration had exceeded its legal authority. Plaintiff states alleged that the various agency actions taken to implement the executive order violated the APA and were contrary to or in excess of statutory authority under other federal statutes, including the Clean Air Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act. Plaintiffs also advanced the argument that adoption and implementation of the executive order were ultra vires because no act of Congress authorized the president's actions.

On December 8, 2025, a federal district court invalidated the Trump administration's sweeping suspension of federal approvals for wind energy projects, ruling that the indefinite pause violated the Administrative Procedure Act. The decision restored the federal government's obligation to process permits and other authorizations needed for wind development. The court found that Interior and other agencies had continued their temporary pause on issuing permits for wind energy projects beyond the time frame the original order contemplated.

The administration's legal defense framed the dispute in starkly political terms. DOJ lawyers argued that the states and climate groups made claims amounting to "nothing more than a policy disagreement over preferences for wind versus fossil fuel energy development" and that the court did not have jurisdiction over the matter. The White House was equally direct: a White House spokesperson stated that "President Trump has been clear: wind energy is the scam of the century," adding that the administration had paused construction of all large-scale offshore wind projects because its "number one priority is to put America First and protect the national security of the American people."

Courts granted all five of the large suspended offshore projects preliminary injunctions against the federal government, allowing construction work to proceed. In April 2026, a federal district court also entered a preliminary injunction preventing the federal government from using several new policies that made agency review for wind and solar projects more onerous and created new limitations for their approval.

New York's attorney general separately sued the Trump administration over the suspension of two major offshore wind projects, asking a federal court to block the December 22 freeze on federal offshore leases held by Equinor and Ørsted. The Interior Department stated it had paused the projects due to complaints from the Pentagon that wind turbines cause radar interference that can make it hard to identify security threats.

Outlook

On June 15, 2026, the First Circuit Court of Appeals granted the federal government's motion for voluntary dismissal of its appeal of the Massachusetts district court's December 2025 judgment vacating the agencies' orders pausing all wind energy authorizations. The district court had concluded that the federal agencies' orders were arbitrary and capricious and contrary to law. The Trump administration had appealed the ruling to the First Circuit in February but never submitted an opening brief. The decision to drop the appeal left the December 2025 ruling in place as final.

The legal resolution of the permitting moratorium, however, has not ended the broader campaign against offshore wind. Only a handful of projects had filed pending applications, and developers may remain reluctant to proceed given economic challenges in the sector and the administration's continued negative posture. The administration has stated it has no intention of conducting future lease auctions and continues its efforts to block individual projects.

What the episode illustrates, above all, is the extent to which executive power can be used to reshape an emerging energy sector without new legislation. The moratorium effectively suspended the federal permitting apparatus for wind energy for most of 2025, and even after courts struck it down, the cumulative effect of associated lease rescissions, stop-work orders, and regulatory barriers has left the industry in a more precarious position than before. Whether future administrations can rebuild the leasing framework that was dismantled — including the rescinded wind energy areas and lease sale schedules — remains an open question, as does the industry's ability to recover investment momentum in a policy environment that remains hostile to offshore wind at the executive level.