Washington, United States | AFP
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 bashed 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.
Shortly after taking office in January, Trump moved to block all new permits for windfarms on federal lands and waters.
His administration has also sought to block all federal loans for wind energy.
The five projects paused by the Interior Department were expected to power millions of homes and businesses along the Atlantic coast.
They include the Vineyard Wind project off Massachusetts, Revolution Wind off Rhode Island, CVOW off Virginia, 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.
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