US: Five offshore wind project leases are halted by the due to a national security concern
US: The U.S. Department of the Interior stated in a statement that it is halting the leases for five massive offshore wind projects that are now being built because of national security threats found by the Department of War in recently finished confidential investigations.
According to the statement, this suspension will allow the Department, the Department of War, and other pertinent federal organizations to collaborate with state partners and leaseholders to determine if these initiatives might potentially reduce the dangers to national security.
“Protecting the American people is the top priority of the U.S. government,” said Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum. The action taken today tackles new threats to national security, including as the fast development of the relevant enemy technology and the weaknesses brought about by massive offshore wind projects that are close to our east coast’s major population centers. The safety of the American people will always come first under the Trump administration.
Vineyard Wind 1 (OCS-A 0501), Revolution Wind (OCS-A 0486), CVOW-Commercial (OCS-A 0483), Sunrise Wind (OCS-A 0487), and Empire Wind 1 (OCS-A 0512) leases have all been placed on hold by the US.
Regarding the national security dangers associated with large-scale offshore wind projects, the US government has long discovered via declassified studies that the movement of enormous turbine blades and the highly reflective towers cause radar interference known as “clutter.” The Department of the Interior said that “the clutter caused by offshore wind projects obscures legitimate moving targets and generates false targets in the vicinity of the wind projects.”
According to a 2024 study from the Department of Energy, a radar’s false alarm detection threshold may be raised to lessen some clutter, but doing so may result in the radar “miss actual targets.”
Doug Burgum defended the move on X by calling offshore wind a “expensive, unreliable, subsidy-dependent scheme.”
“One of the most costly, unreliable, and subsidy-dependent schemes ever pushed upon American taxpayers is offshore wind,” he wrote. Here’s why @POTUS is giving energy initiatives like US natural gas and clean, beautiful coal top priority.
“Electricity from offshore wind is CONSIDERABLY more expensive for taxpayers and customers than from reliable sources. The Secretary said, “On average, the prices from the five halted offshore wind projects are 75% higher than the already high grid prices on the East Coast.”
Offshore wind is more expensive than natural gas, he said.
“Even more stark is the cost of electricity produced by offshore wind versus natural gas: in New England, offshore wind is the most expensive source of energy, being nearly 12x more than natural gas,” Burgum posted on X.
During his speech at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in September 2025, US President Donald Trump launched a scathing attack on climate science, calling climate change the “greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world” and denouncing what he called an increasing reliance on renewable energy sources. He said that the idea of a carbon footprint was a myth and charged anonymous organizations with “evil intentions” while promoting environmental causes.