Renewable energy advocates received some small wins from the Trump administration on offshore wind development. But the House-passed budget reconciliation bill could present a new set of problems.
The bill that passed the House on Thursday makes sweeping changes to the structure of tax credits available to wind developers as part of the Biden-era Inflation Reduction Act. Those include moving up the deadlines for when developers must start construction on renewable energy projects and place them in service, or ensure they meet a series of Internal Revenue Service guidelines for readiness, to receive tax credits.
The future energy development for wind is uncertain. Supporters are hoping President Donald Trump will help enough to at least keep current development going, thanks to his administration’s recent decision to allow a wind project off the coast of New York and New Jersey to move forward.
The week started on a positive note for renewable energy backers. Empire, a subsidiary of wind developer Equinor, said Monday evening that the Trump administration lifted its stop-work order for Empire Wind 1, a project that’s set to deliver power to 500,000 homes in New York City by 2027.
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“I’m happy that the administration came to their senses,” Rep. Dan Goldman, who represents one of the districts that will house Empire Wind’s offshore operations, told NOTUS. He added that he hopes it’s an indication that Trump officials could be more open to wind development going forward.
Trump issued an executive order in January halting all new offshore wind development and mandating reviews of existing leases. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, the Interior Department branch that oversees permitting for offshore wind development, issued the stop-work order in April, citing a need to review the project’s environmental analyses.
That order is still in place, and the decision to move ahead with Empire Wind 1 surprised and disappointed some opponents in Congress. That includes Rep. Chris Smith of New Jersey, who called the project an “alarming development” in a letter to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum in March, ahead of the original stop-work order.
“I spoke to the interior secretary at length about it and he was all in on the importance of it,” Smith said of the stop-work order after NOTUS informed him the project was now moving forward.
“I love the whales, that’s all real issues, but the one that trumps it all is the security and risks to boats and planes colliding with each other because of the radar issue, and nobody has answered that,” he added. Smith has pushed for reports detailing how offshore wind could affect radar systems used for navigation and defense.
Backers of wind energy development seem to be losing out in Congress. Along with the tax credit changes, the reconciliation bill rescinds funding dedicated to wind-generated electricity transmission planning and analysis.
Some moderate Republicans pushed for a less-sweeping phaseout of those Inflation Reduction Act measures, threatening to oppose the bill over the clean-energy tax changes. Last-minute changes to the legislation primarily maintained flexibility for nuclear projects rather than other types of renewable energy, and in the end, those moderates backed the broader legislation.
In spite of the setbacks, fans of wind energy are hopeful that ongoing projects will at least see a smooth path forward.
Some of their optimism comes from allies in the Trump administration, including Kate MacGregor, the deputy interior secretary.
MacGregor’s portfolio as a staffer for the House Natural Resources Committee included policy work on offshore renewable energy development, and her most recent position was as environmental services vice president at NextEra Energy. The company’s subsidiary, NextEra Energy Resources, proclaims itself the “world’s largest generator of clean, renewable wind energy,” and another subsidiary, NextEra Energy Transmission, has backed offshore development on the east coast.
Other Trump administration nominees have also signaled they’re open to diverging from the president when it comes to wind. In a nomination hearing with the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Leslie Beyer, Trump’s pick for an assistant secretary position that oversees land and minerals management at the Interior Department, said she supports “all forms of energy we can get our hands on.”
When Sen. Martin Heinrich echoed concerns about how stop-work orders could deincentivize private sector investment in new energy projects, Beyer responded, “I agree with you.”
Trump himself has criticized wind energy on multiple occasions, calling turbines “disgusting” and making unsubstantiated claims about how they affect people’s health and the power grid. In line with his history, his support for lifting the Empire Wind order wasn’t entirely about the merits of wind energy — it was reportedly linked to a fossil-fuel-centric counteroffer from New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, who spoke with Trump on multiple occasions to push for the project to move forward.
“I am encouraged by Governor Hochul’s comments about her willingness to move forward on critical pipeline capacity,” Burgum wrote in a post on X hours after Equinor announced the Empire Wind news.
A spokesperson for Hochul told reporters that the governor did not strike a deal on any specific pipelines or projects.
Still, wind supporters like Goldman are unsure how much the wind industry can hold its own under a Trump presidency.
Though Goldman said he feels “great” about Empire Wind getting back on track for completion, he said there are still risks that come with the administration’s restrictive approach to offshore development.
“It’s terrible, terrible policy to cancel projects that have already started,” he told NOTUS. “It not only would have lost future revenue, you know, future investment, but would have rendered the investment to date completely a waste, totally wasteful, and it disincentivizes anyone else around the world from investing.”
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Shifra Dayak is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.
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