https://www.cnbc.com/2025/09/11/offshore-wind-renewables-energy-trump-burgum.html
By Spencer Kimball
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said offshore wind farms have no future in the U.S. as a source of electricity generation.
The Department of the Interior is “taking a deep look” at five offshore wind farms that are under construction in the U.S., Burgum said Wednesday without naming the projects.
Offshore wind has no future as a source of electricity generation in the U.S. under the Trump administration, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said at an energy conference in Italy this week.
“Under this administration, there is not a future for offshore wind because it is too expensive and not reliable enough,” Burgum told an audience at the Gastech conference in Milan on Wednesday.
It is the clearest statement yet from a senior Trump administration official that the president aims to shut down the nascent offshore wind industry in the U.S. Burgum oversees the leasing and permitting of offshore wind farms in federal waters as head of the Department of the Interior.
President Donald Trump barred new leases for offshore wind farms on his first day in office through an executive order that was framed as “temporary.” Trump also ordered a review of permits, but the industry had hoped projects under construction would be allowed to move forward.
But the Department of the Interior is “taking a deep look” at five offshore wind farms that are already under construction in the U.S., Burgum said Wednesday without naming the projects.
The offshore wind farms under construction are Revolution Wind off Rhode Island; Vineyard Wind 1 off Massachusetts; Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind; Sunrise Wind off New York; and Empire Wind also off New York.
“Yes, they were permitted but they got moved through a very fast ideologically driven permitting process,” Burgum said at the conference in Italy.
