Yet Another Offshore Wind Farm Survives The Trump Chopper
The French firm EDF Group has not yet given up its leases to develop two offshore wind farms in the US through its subsidiary Atlantic Shores (cropped, courtesy of EDF).
May 4, 20263 hours
Tina Casey
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US President Donald Trump swept into office last year with a red-hot urge to destroy the domestic offshore wind industry and all the jobs that come along with it. Why? Who knows! Regardless of his efforts, five new projects are at or nearing completion this year with full operation coming soon. There’s more where that came from, too. A federal judge has just cleared the way for the leading French utility EDF Group to tee up its Atlantic Shores wind project in the coming years, probably after Trump leaves office as scheduled on January 20, 2029 — peacefully this time, one hopes.
The Saga Of The Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind Project
Trump certainly has tried to set the US offshore wind industry back on its heels. As soon as he took office last year, he issued an order that stopped the Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management from issuing any new leases for offshore wind farms in federal waters. He also ordered the US Environmental Protection Agency to re-review existing leases that had yet to begin construction, and he went so far as to issue emergency stop-work orders against five wind farms where construction was already well under way.
In the early weeks of this year, a series of federal judges ruled that work can continue on the five in-construction wind projects. Last December, a federal judge also ruled that it was illegal and unconstitutional for Trump to subject existing leaseholders to specious, indefinite re-reviews of permits that were already granted.
EDF Group falls into the re-review category. The saga began in 2021, when the company’s Atlantic Shores subsidiary won leases to construct two wind farms in federal waters off the coast of New Jersey, between the seaside towns of Barnegat Light to the north and Atlantic City to the south.
In 2024, EPA issued final permits for the two wind farms under the Clean Air Act, covering up to 200 wind turbines with a total capacity of 2.8 gigawatts. However, soon after Trump took office in January 2025, the newly restyled EPA abruptly pulled the Clean Air Act permit for additional review.
Despite the sucker punch from EPA, Atlantic Shores did not give up on the project, at least not at the time. “Atlantic Shores is disappointed by the EPA’s decision to pull back its fully executed permit as regulatory certainty is critical to deploying major energy projects,” the company stated in response to the EPA action.
“Atlantic Shores stands ready to deliver on the promise of American energy dominance and has devoted extensive time and resources to follow a complex, multi-year permitting process, resulting in final project approvals that conform with the law,” Atlantic Shores emphasized.
The Saga Continues, Dark Money Or Not
Standing ready or not, Atlantic Shores looked ready to give up the ghost in June, when an agreement with the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities fell through. The NJBPU kerfluffle was met with cheers by locally organized, though not necessarily locally funded, groups opposed to offshore wind farms.
Take the organization Protect Our Coast, for example. Apparently the extensive real estate development that has made a hash of the New Jersey seaboard over the years is of no concern to the organization, which was formed specifically to advocate against wind farms located a good 8-10 miles or more off the coast.
The local news organization Bay Journal is among those following the money. “Much of the anti-turbine disinformation is supported by ‘dark money’ that is connected to conservative anti-environmental organizations,” Bay Journal reported in 2023. “Two of those, Protect our Coast New Jersey and Save Our Beach View, purport to be grassroots organizations but are actually funded by the Ocean Legal Defense Fund, which is controlled by the Caesar Rodney Institute.”
“That organization is in turn a member of the State Policy Network, which…is funded in part by the Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund, which strongly support climate change denial,” Bay Journal continued, citing the money tracker SourceWatch.
Offshore Wind Lives To Fight Another Day
Atlantic Shores appeared to be all but dead in the water last year, but apparently news of its death was greatly exaggerated. On May 3, Shore News Network reported that Atlantic Shores beat back a legal challenge from the organization Save Long Beach Island and a group of individuals.
“U.S. District Judge Zahid N. Quraishi granted a motion to dismiss filed by Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind, rejecting claims brought by Save Long Beach Island and several Shore residents who sought to block the project’s development in the New York Bight,” SNN observed, with Bight referring to a corner of the ocean defined by the coasts of New Jersey and Long Island in New York State.
“The plaintiffs, including residents from Brigantine, Beach Haven, and Brant Beach, argued that construction and operation of up to 200 offshore wind turbines would generate noise harmful to people living along the Jersey Shore.”
Wait, noise? Harmful? Really? Readers, if you are familiar with the Jersey shore between Barnegat Light and Atlantic City, drop a note in the discussion thread regarding noises that could disturb the peace of people living in Brigantine, Beach Haven, and Brant Beach, and elsewhere up and down the heavily developed, horribly damaged coast of New Jersey.
As reported by SNN, Judge Quraishi did not reference noise issues, or lack thereof, in the ruling. The motion to dismiss was in order because the plaintiff lacked the proper platform to proceed under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, a 1950s era piece of legislation that established federal authority over energy development in coastal waters.
Compare & Contrast: Atlantic Shores Vs. TotalEnergies
According to SNN, Atlantic Shores may face other obstacles, but the Save Long Beach Island lawsuit will not be one of them. As for any potential for the project to rise from the ashes, that is up to EDF. Possibly, the company could hold out for a payout like the one its fellow French energy firm, TotalEnergies enjoyed. TotalEnergies also had two US offshore leases in hand, but it chose to walk away when the Trump administration offered a $1 billion payout to hand its leases back.
Or, did they? Trump can, and has been, bending the Republican majority in the House and Senate to his will, but Democratic office holders and candidates for office are already gearing up to assume control after the results of Election Day 2026 roll in, and they are taking names.
In a letter to TotalEnergies CEO and Chairman M. Patrick Pouyanné dated April 29, House Democrats reminded the company that documents regarding the payout had been requested on April 6, and were yet to be received.
“The Department of the Interior…paid your company a nearly $1 billion corporate handout with taxpayer money under indefensible and possibly illegal terms,” reads the letter, adding that the recently released text of the settlement “suggests that DOI and you both knew this deal was indefensible.”
So, game on…
Photo: The French firm EDF Group has not yet given up its leases to develop two offshore wind farms in the US through its subsidiary Atlantic Shores (cropped, courtesy of EDF).
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