Why Should Delaware Care?
In a court filing last week, the Trump administration – which has for months opposed offshore wind power – announced its plan to revoke federal approval for the offshore wind farm off the Delaware-Maryland coast. The immediate implications for the project are unclear, but the move comes as Delawareans are already seeing higher prices for electricity.
The Trump administration announced in a legal filing last week that it intends to revoke construction approvals for a controversial planned wind farm off the Delaware-Maryland coast within the next three weeks.
The move comes after the administration has spent months opposing offshore wind power, and more recently honing that opposition against Baltimore-based US Wind’s Delmarva project.
Assistant Attorney General Adam Gustafson and interim U.S. Attorney Julianne Murray argued in a Delaware U.S. District Court filing on Friday that the court should stay – or pause – its case while the federal government works to withdraw its prior approval for the wind farm in a Maryland court.
According to the filing, the administration plans to withdraw its approval by Sept. 12, as part of an ongoing Ocean City, Md., case relating to the wind farm.
Separately, attorneys defending a federal lawsuit brought by Ocean City asked a judge on Monday to sign off on and schedule the administrative proceedings for a “voluntary remand,” which is a request to send a case back to an administrative agency for reassessment.
Should that voluntary remand be approved, and the government pull those permits, it could very well be the end of the US Wind project.
According to the filing, the government would file its voluntary remand on Sept. 12, and allow other parties in the lawsuit to challenge it sometime before Oct. 13. While it’s unlikely that Ocean City would challenge the motion, US Wind could.
US Wind is a “defendant-intervenor” in the case, meaning it was not directly named in the initial lawsuit, but still joined on as a party. After the October deadline, the federal government would reply by Nov. 12.
A spokesperson from Murray’s office declined to comment on the filing on Monday.
An ongoing battle
Last week’s move is the latest development in an ongoing legal battle against the planned wind farm, which would bring more than 100 turbines nearly 12 miles off the coast of beach communities in Maryland and Delaware.
The wind farm has been a subject of a years-long debate in the region along with several lawsuits. Those include one filed by Sussex County resident Edward Bintz in February, and another filed by the town of Ocean City in October 2024. Both suits challenge aspects of US Wind’s offshore construction approvals, which were originally granted under the Biden administration.
The federal government’s recent filing is part of the Sussex County lawsuit, but its argument relates back to the Ocean City case.
The Trump administration’s intent to withdraw US Wind’s construction approval as part of the Ocean City suit would render the entire Sussex County complaint “moot,” Gustafson and Murray wrote.
Even if the administration’s forthcoming withdrawal request is denied in Maryland next month, the federal government will still review its construction approval, according to the filing.
That review “will likely result in significant changes that will impact the positions and arguments of the parties here.”
Despite the uncertainty, US Wind’s Vice President for External Affairs Nancy Sopko said in a statement the company “remain[s] confident that the federal permits we secured after a multi-year and rigorous public review process are legally sound.”
A spokesperson for US Wind did not respond to further requests for comment about what a construction approval review would mean for the fate of the project.
The local substation permit
Friday’s court filing solidified another of several legal fights confronting the US Wind project, including challenges to the issuance of state permits in Maryland and in Delaware.
The ruling also arrived just as a Delaware judge was set to consider arguments on the legality of a new law that next year will overrule Sussex County’s past denial of a land use permit that US Wind needed to build an electrical substation near Millsboro.
Lawmakers passed passed Senate Bill 199 during the final hours of their 2025 legislative session in June, as part of a compromise that had Republicans pull back on threats to block the state’s capital budget. The bill goes into effect in January.
During an Aug. 13 office conference with Delaware Superior Court Judge Mark H. Conner, lawyers for the county and U.S. Wind agreed to a 1-month deadline to submit written arguments debating whether lawmakers had the legal ability to “preempt” county authority.
David Rutt, an attorney for the Sussex County Council, told the judge and opposing counsel that he “heard through the grapevine” that “there are some moves afoot to challenge this legislation.”
It is not immediately clear whether such challenges would continue if the Trump Administration revokes US Wind’s federal permits.
Reporter Maddy Lauria contributed to this story.