A photo of turbines at the South Fork Wind offshore wind farm, the first commercial-scale offshore wind farm in the United States. Photo courtesy Ørsted
Republican Congressman Jeff Van Drew says he’s been working with President-elect Donald Trump on crafting an executive order aimed at “halt[ing] offshore wind turbine activities” along the East Coast.
“These offshore wind projects should have never been approved in the first place,” Van Drew stated, criticizing the Biden administration’s approval process and characterizing the projects as “an economic and environmental disaster waiting to happen”.
The move comes at a critical juncture for not only New Jersey’s ambitious offshore wind initiatives, but also the nascent domestic market as a whole. The state has set a target of generating 11 gigawatts of offshore wind electricity by 2040, representing 30% of East Coast wind energy production.
Just months ago, in October 2024, BOEM approved the Atlantic Shores South project off New Jersey’s coast. The project consists of two facilities that will generate 2,800 megawatts—enough to power nearly one million homes.
Van Drew, who has consistently opposed offshore wind development, cited mounting concerns about the projects’ impacts. He has previously pointed to specific incidents, including a turbine failure at Nantucket, and raised alarms about potential environmental risks, noise violations, and escalating costs to taxpayers. In 2023, he proposed legislation for a complete moratorium on both existing and future offshore wind projects.
A draft executive order obtained by Heatmap News calls for “the suspension of offshore wind development.” The draft reveals that beyond halting new permits, it would impose a stop-work order on all offshore wind projects currently under construction.
The proposed executive order represents a direct challenge to the Biden-Harris administration’s goal of deploying 30 gigawatts of offshore wind capacity by 2030.
President-elect Trump, a vocal opponent of offshore wind development, has previously vowed a “day one” executive order targeting the sector, having repeatedly criticized offshore wind projects as deadly to birds and whales.
To date, the Biden Administration has approved 11 commercial-scale offshore wind projects, representing 19 gigawatts (GW) of clean energy—enough to power more than 6 million homes. BOEM has also held six offshore wind lease auctions since 2022, including a record-breaking sale off New York and the first-ever sales off the Pacific, Gulf of Mexico, and Gulf of Maine coasts.
The Atlantic Shores project, a joint venture between Shell New Energies US and EDF Renewables, along with the numerous other projects in various stages of development, now face an uncertain future as the incoming administration prepares to take a drastically different approach to offshore wind development.
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