Trump administration aims to stop offshore wind development on national security grounds, creating legal uncertainty for US project finance

The Trump administration has been working to halt offshore wind development in the United States on the basis that it poses a national security risk, a policy pursued since late 2025. The legal battle came into focus when a court ruling by Judge Lamberth put the Revolution Wind project, serving Rhode Island and Connecticut, back on track in January, finding that the government had not applied its newly asserted national security concerns specifically to that project. The judgment noted that BOEM (the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, the US federal agency that manages offshore energy licensing) had waited until December to act on information received in November, and that Secretary Burgum had publicly criticised offshore wind for reasons unrelated to national security around the time of a stop-work order. The administration's strategy of invoking national security grounds creates a contested legal framework for offshore wind permitting: developers and lenders must assess whether project approvals can be revoked on grounds that courts may find inadequately particularised. While this story is US-focused, the legal risk model has direct relevance for UK and European developers and their lenders who finance US offshore wind assets, and for English-law governed project finance documentation that includes regulatory risk protections.