The Trump Administration Protects U.S. National Security by Pausing Offshore Wind Leases

In U.S. law and the current federal government, there is no agency called the “Department of War”; that name was abolished in 1947 and its functions were folded into the Department of Defense. In this 2025 press release, Interior is using “Department of War” as a political rebranding of the Pentagon/Department of Defense, and news coverage treats the underlying security concerns as coming from the Defense Department and the Pentagon. So, functionally, it refers to the same institution that is legally the Department of Defense.

Based on public project documentation, the paused projects are led by these companies/leaseholders:

• Vineyard Wind 1 (OCS-A 0501): Vineyard Wind LLC, a joint venture of Avangrid (Iberdrola’s U.S. affiliate) and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP).
• Revolution Wind (OCS-A 0486): Revolution Wind LLC, an Ørsted‑led project; Eversource previously owned 50% but sold its stake in 2024 to Global Infrastructure Partners’ Skyborn Renewables.
• CVOW – Commercial (OCS-A 0483): Dominion Energy (Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind – Commercial).
• Sunrise Wind (OCS-A 0487): Sunrise Wind LLC, developed by Ørsted; Eversource sold its 50% stake in 2024 and now acts mainly as a service provider.
• Empire Wind 1 (OCS-A 0512): Empire Offshore Wind LLC, a joint venture led by Equinor; BP previously held 50% of the overall Empire Wind lease but Equinor has since taken full control of Empire Wind 1’s development.

Interior’s pause is grounded in two main legal authorities:

1. The Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA), 43 U.S.C. §1334(a)(1)–(2), which authorizes the Secretary of the Interior to issue regulations providing for suspension or temporary prohibition of operations, and even cancellation, when activities threaten the national security or defense (among other harms).
2. BOEM’s renewable‑energy regulations at 30 C.F.R. §585.417, which explicitly allow BOEM to order a suspension of a lease or grant “when the suspension is necessary for reasons of national security or defense.” Together, these give Interior the power to order an immediate suspension of offshore wind lease operations on national‑security grounds.

As of now, neither the Interior Department’s press release nor subsequent public statements specify how long the pause will last or provide a formal schedule for reassessment. Officials have only said the pause will remain while Interior, the (so‑called) Department of War/Defense, and other agencies assess whether the identified risks can be mitigated; no binding public timeline for review or resumption has been issued.

Beyond radar “clutter,” the specific national‑security risks in the cited classified reports have not been publicly released. The Interior press release only references radar interference; media reporting says officials allude broadly to vulnerabilities near East Coast population centers and to adversary drone and missile threats but does not detail spying, sabotage, or supply‑chain issues. A recent GAO report and earlier DoD/DOE work describe general concerns from offshore wind about degraded air and maritime radar performance, interference with military training and test ranges, and potential vulnerabilities if critical infrastructure is targeted, but these are not tied explicitly to the classified 2025 reports. So, apart from radar‑related impacts and generic references to “emerging adversary technologies,” the more detailed risks remain classified and unknown to the public.

Public, unclassified work on wind‑radar conflicts outlines several mitigation tools that can reduce radar clutter and related risks without canceling projects:

• Radar and software upgrades: improving radar signal processing, filters, and tracking algorithms so systems can distinguish turbines from real targets and suppress clutter.
• Additional or relocated sensors: adding gap‑filler radars, changing radar siting, or adjusting beam patterns so critical radars do not look directly through turbine arrays.
• Wind‑farm layout and siting changes: moving turbine locations, reducing turbine height in sensitive sectors, or creating “corridors” aligned with key radar lines of sight and military training routes.
• Operational procedures: coordinating turbine operations and military training or surveillance schedules, and using data fusion across multiple sensors to compensate for local clutter. DOE’s Wind Turbine Radar Interference Mitigation Working Group (WTRIM WG) and related reports to Congress describe these as the main mitigation pathways now under development and deployment. The 2025 pause announcement says agencies will work with leaseholders to explore whether such measures can adequately mitigate the classified risks, but it does not commit to any one option.

“OCS‑A” is the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s identifier for a commercial wind lease on the federal Outer Continental Shelf in the Atlantic:

• “OCS” = Outer Continental Shelf (federal offshore waters).
• “A” = Atlantic region (other letters are used for different regions).
• The 4‑digit number (e.g., 0501) is the unique lease number BOEM assigns to that specific leased area. So, OCS‑A 0501 is simply BOEM’s formal lease number for the Vineyard Wind 1 lease area, and similar codes uniquely identify the other projects’ offshore lease areas.

Yes, the pause is already affecting those areas and is widely expected to do so more over time:

• Jobs and construction timelines: Construction on all five projects has been halted or slowed, with reports of offshore workforces being stood down and contractors warned of potential layoffs or demobilization. Developers and states warn that if the pause is prolonged, thousands of construction and port‑upgrade jobs tied to these projects could be delayed or lost.
• Project schedules and financing: Projects such as Vineyard Wind 1, CVOW‑Commercial, Sunrise Wind, Revolution Wind, and Empire Wind 1 were in advanced construction or execution phases; the suspension introduces schedule slippage, threatens financing arrangements, and may trigger contract disputes.
• Electricity supply and clean‑energy goals: Together, the paused projects represent roughly 5–6 GW of planned offshore wind capacity for New England, New York, and Virginia. States and analysts say that delaying these projects will slow progress toward state offshore‑wind and broader clean‑energy mandates, and could keep more fossil‑fuel generation on the grid longer, with potential upward pressure on power prices in affected regions if replacement capacity is not built on time. Exact quantitative impacts depend on how long the pause lasts, which is not yet known.