By Matt Rooney
Well, that blows. Pun intended, Save Jerseyans.
On Monday evening, a federal judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts (appointed by Bill Clinton, by the way) struck down President Donald Trump’s order pausing offshore wind development. Judge Patti B. Saris complained that the President’s order stopping offshore wind development leases on public lands and waterways was “arbitrary and capricious” in violation of federal law.
Ironically, despite the Biden Administration’s shortcut-intensive effort to approve wind projects, Judge Saris said the Trump era Interior Department failed to supply a “reasoned explanation” for the pause consistent with the requirements of the federal Administrative Procedure Act; instead, Saris alleged, “agency defendants candidly concede that the sole factor they considered in deciding to stop issuing permits was the president’s direction to do so.”
Economic factors and the evaporation of public funding mean that offshore wind is unlikely to benefit from this legal setback. However, unless the Trump order is reaffirmed, the lane for future projects to industrialize our coastlines is now at least legally open.
New Jersey wasted billions of dollars on offshore wind projects prior to the industry’s contraction; the bottom officially began to fall out when Orsted aborted its wind farm project off the coast of Cape May County in October 2023.
