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Federal Judge Clears Trump Administration to Revoke MA Offshore Wind Project Approval
Legal Insurrection ^ | November 07, 2025 | Leslie Eastman

Posted on 11/07/2025 7:52:48 AM PST by Red Badger

Meanwhile, Rhode Island bureaucrats give a big thumbs-up to SouthCoast Wind transmission line plan.

President Donald Trump clearly has the climate cultists and green grifters among his top targets during his very busy second term, which began with his signing an executive order in January to halt new or renewed offshore wind leases.

Now it looks like the plug is going to be pulled from a massive offshore East Coast wind farm project.

Back in September, I reported that federal regulators were moving to revoke approval of SouthCoast Wind’s construction and operations plan, the final major permit required before offshore turbine installation. The project, located about 23 miles south of Nantucket, was slated to build up to 141 turbines supposedly capable of powering roughly 840,000 homes in Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

A federal judge has now ruled that the Trump administration may proceed with revoking federal permits for the project.

The Trump administration signaled its intent to reconsider the permit in September, claiming that the Environmental Impact Statement for the project may have “understated or obfuscated impacts” that would possibly result in noncompliance with the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act.

District Court for the District of Columbia judge Tanya Chutkan, who was appointed by President Barack Obama, ruled in favor of the White House Tuesday, saying that the project developers would not suffer from “immediate and significant hardship” if the administration proceeded with the reconsideration.

The decision effectively allows the administration to strip the project of its federal approval, blocking it from being built under President Donald Trump’s second term.

A federal district court judge has ruled that the US interior department can scrap the approval of the construction and operations plan (COP) for the 2.4GW SouthCoast Wind project off Massachusetts#windpower #renewables #energytransitionhttps://t.co/t5Ak8bGVmc pic.twitter.com/QPrTPVoG89

— Windpower Monthly (@windpower_m) November 5, 2025

The Trump administration argued that the environmental impacts may have been understated or misrepresented, invoking the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act to justify the permit review.

The Trump administration said in September that it would weigh whether to revoke the Biden-era approval of the project. Months earlier, in March, the town of Nantucket sued the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management in an effort to block the project. The town accused the agency of failing to comply with environmental and historical preservation laws when it issued the permit.

Soon after returning to the White House, Mr. Trump issued a sweeping order to halt all leasing of federal lands and waters for new wind farms. His administration has since gone after several wind farms that had been given federal permits by the Biden administration and were either under construction or about to start.

Despite this decision, eco-activist bureaucrats will continue to thrust the green-energy fantasies upon an unwilling population. Despite the judge’s ruling, which is likely to lead to the loss of a permit, regulators have approved construction of the transmission line for the wind farms.

…[T]he path is clear for the Massachusetts offshore wind project to run power lines up the Sakonnet River and across Portsmouth to Mount Hope Bay, with approval from the Rhode Island Energy Facility Siting Board on Tuesday.

Power purchase agreements between the project developer and Massachusetts and Rhode Island utility suppliers are not yet signed — despite a Nov. 1 deadline — amid continued uncertainty over the staying power of offshore wind under the Trump administration.

…Ronald Gerwatowski, chairman of the Rhode Island Energy Facility Siting Board, acknowledged the “new level of uncertainty” surrounding SouthCoast Wind. But, that did not deter the three-member panel from concluding its yearslong review for the transmission lines that will connect the project, once built, to the onshore electric grid.

“I am very satisfied with the application,” Gerwatowski said Tuesday. “By the time we reached the evidentiary stage, there was no evidence that would support the denial of this license.”

However, the federal court ruling is a big win for local residents and marine life…especially the whales.

pic.twitter.com/aNKTrWeHaE

— Leslie Eastman ☥ (@Mutnodjmet) November 5, 2025


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Constitution/Conservatism; Government; US: Connecticut; US: Massachusetts; US: Rhode Island
KEYWORDS: judgewatch; massachusetts; permits; rhodeisland; wind

1 posted on 11/07/2025 7:52:48 AM PST by Red Badger
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To: Red Badger

So they are going to build transmission line to nowhere!

Heck, copper can be recycled for good money!


2 posted on 11/07/2025 8:01:23 AM PST by AZJeep (sane )
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To: AZJeep

Score one for the whales.


3 posted on 11/07/2025 8:04:52 AM PST by Redleg Duke (“Time to Play Cowboys and Snowflakes!”)
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To: Red Badger
Didn't Ted Kennedy stop a huge windfarm from being built in the bay outside his house?

It would've destroyed his view.....

4 posted on 11/07/2025 8:13:20 AM PST by jeffc (Resident of the free State of Florida)
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To: Red Badger

Pres. Trump should just pull any Fed funds and subsidies, and let them build it, if they can do it without my money.


5 posted on 11/07/2025 8:14:50 AM PST by VanShuyten ("...that all the donkeys were dead. I know nothing as to the fate of the less valuable animals.”)
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To: Redleg Duke

AND birds!


6 posted on 11/07/2025 8:23:55 AM PST by V_TWIN (RIP Charlie Kirk)
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To: AZJeep

I would think anyone could sue and win to stop any new construction on their land since there is no longer any public use under eminent domain.


7 posted on 11/07/2025 8:24:52 AM PST by alternatives?
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To: Red Badger

Has rand paul weighed in yet?....that’s what REALLY matters. /s/


8 posted on 11/07/2025 8:24:53 AM PST by V_TWIN (RIP Charlie Kirk)
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To: Red Badger

Heck! I WANT wind turbines on the coastline of Massachusetts and Connecticut and Maine and the Napa Valley instead of ruining our western landscapes here in Oklahoma. These jerk libs love these things so much, they should see and enjoy them in their own front yards.


9 posted on 11/07/2025 8:31:19 AM PST by oldplayer
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To: V_TWIN

10 posted on 11/07/2025 8:40:13 AM PST by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegals are put up in 5 Star hotels....................)
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To: Red Badger

Big win for all sea-life, commercial fishermen, and seafood restaurants.


11 posted on 11/07/2025 8:41:39 AM PST by PIF (They came for me and mine ... now its your turn)
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To: Red Badger

Tanya Chutkan ruled in favor of Trump?


12 posted on 11/07/2025 8:45:42 AM PST by bwest
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To: PIF

Agreed. Real environmentalists should be happy.


13 posted on 11/07/2025 9:06:00 AM PST by Tell It Right (1 Thessalonians 5:21 -- Put everything to the test, hold fast to that which is true.)
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To: Redleg Duke; AZJeep
However, the federal court ruling is a big win for local residents and marine life…especially the whales.

I have wondered for years: why whales and dolphins aren't as important to Environmental wackos as salmon, snail darters and desert tortes?

It can't be that they don't care about sea life because they get real upset about Coral Bleaching from CO2 and Global Warming.

14 posted on 11/07/2025 9:10:40 AM PST by Pontiac (The welfare state must fail because it is contrary to human nature and diminishes the human spirit.)
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To: Red Badger

I’d be in favor of putting wind farms near Obama’s house in Martha’s Vineyard.


15 posted on 11/07/2025 9:22:02 AM PST by grumpygresh
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To: bwest

Tanya Chutkan ruled in favor of Trump?”

Stunner that is for sure. There is a reason for it that we do not know.


16 posted on 11/07/2025 9:40:14 AM PST by gibsonguy
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To: Red Badger

GOOD!

Now let’s make sure the a-holes who scored all those wind-subsidies are forced to clean up all the messes and damage done by this fools-errand movement. (talkin to you Anus King)

Those machines will never pay back what it cost to make and install them, and wouldn’t even exist without the billions of tax dollars required to create them.


17 posted on 11/07/2025 9:56:30 AM PST by ROCKLOBSTER (Show me a RAT, I'll show you a felon.)
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To: Red Badger

And I’m gonna post it from every source I can find.

Here’s #2

https://freerepublic.com/focus/chat/4351300/posts?page=10


18 posted on 11/07/2025 10:07:05 AM PST by V_TWIN (RIP Charlie Kirk)
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To: Red Badger

Im so glad we have judges who can tell the president what he can and cant do.

Now, why do we have a president when we have all these judges to do the job?


19 posted on 11/07/2025 10:10:41 AM PST by lowbridge ("Let’s check with Senator Schumer before we run it" - NY Times Editor)
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Quite a few years before anyone publicly knew about this project, the USCG Academy ship simulators was tasked with generating this near exact wind farm in the ocean. I was the chief engineer and an operator/trainer of the facility 1991-2024.

It took a long time and a lot of effort with the both the graphics and the physics.

The purpose was to then place disabled tankers, cruise liners, VLCCs and pleasure craft in the tower field. Actual best of the best coxswains and ship drivers in the 1st and 3rd CG districts for various USCG cutters and patrol boats used the simulators to simulate and evaluate rescue operations.

Regardless what process was tried, everyone ended up in the water, vessels slammed into the towers, sank, major oil spills... every time... various WX conditions. Lost cutters as the prize crews tried their best.

We surmised the wind farm project was not going to advance with these results being fed back to DC up the chain.

We all wanted to throw up when we much later read the project was approved and construction was to start.


20 posted on 11/07/2025 3:08:22 PM PST by USCG SimTech
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