Why Should Delaware Care?
Spiking electricity prices have sparked calls from across the mid-Atlantic for the construction of new power plants. But a proposed offshore wind farm near the Maryland/ Delaware state line has drawn stiff opposition and various lawsuits from local government officials and residents.
A controversial offshore wind project, planned near Ocean City, Md., cleared a major hurdle Tuesday when the Delaware Supreme Court upheld a state law overriding Sussex County’s denial of a key permit for the development.
The decision – which comes about two months after a lower court similarly ruled in favor of the state – also marked a blow to “local control” advocates who have argued that the state has overstepped its authority in zoning decisions several times over the past year.
At issue in the case was an application to Sussex County for a permit to build an electrical substation on land that sits next to the Indian River Power Plant in Dagsboro. The Baltimore-based wind energy company, US Wind, plans to run high voltage cables from its offshore wind generators to the substation.
While Sussex County denied the permit request in late 2024, state legislators later passed a law overriding the denial. Sussex County then sued the state, along with the Town of Fenwick Island.
In its ruling, Supreme Court justices declared that the Delaware legislature controls zoning power, even when “it has delegated that power to the counties and municipalities.”
“It has the power to reclaim it and need not defer to the decisions of subordinate governments,” the justices said.
In response to the ruling, Sussex County attorney Jane Brady told Spotlight Delaware that while she was “disappointed” by the ruling, she will not pursue further appeals.
A spokesperson for Sussex County said he does not have a comment at this time. Fenwick Island Mayor Natalie Magdeburger did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Meanwhile, Delaware Attorney General Kathy Jennings framed her response to the ruling around the electricity crunch the state currently faces. She noted her gratitude for the high court’s unanimous decision, because “supplying more clean energy to the grid is crucial to get Delawareans some real relief on their power bills.”
While the state won in court, US Wind still faces hurdles to its eventual development of the 114-turbine offshore wind farm.
Those include an ongoing federal lawsuit brought by Ocean City and local community groups challenging the federal permits for the project. The plaintiffs in that case recently filed a motion for summary judgment, which means they asked the judge to rule in their favor without a trial.
Another obstacle for the project involves US Wind’s possible loss of federal incentives under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which President Donald Trump signed into law last year. The new law threatens to cut the lucrative tax credits for previously approved alternative energy projects, if their on-site construction does not begin by this July.
A spokesperson for US Wind said its officials “remain committed to bringing this project to fruition.”
A longstanding controversy
At the center of opposition to US Wind’s plans have been local governments and business groups along the Delaware and Maryland beaches, who have argued that the wind project could negatively impact the environment and their tourism industry.
In late 2024, a coalition of those opponents from the Maryland side created a website that lobbied Delawareans to contact their council members and tell them to deny US Wind’s permit for the Dagsboro substation.
The website, StopOffshoreWind.com, also claimed that the windfarm would allow “foreign investors” to collect federal subsidies — references to U.S. government incentives provided to wind energy projects, and to U.S. Wind’s ownership.
But proponents of the project say renewable energy is essential in the region today as it faces high electricity prices, as well as a likely future surge in demand for power from data centers.
Spotlight Delaware has reported on a recent analysis that shows how data center development in Delaware could cause energy prices in the state to spike further because of energy congestion within transmission lines.
And that congestion would primarily come from the increased amount of electricity flowing from the north of the Delmarva peninsula to the south, since Delaware imports 80% of the electricity it uses.
US Wind says its wind farm has the potential to generate as much as 1,800 megawatts of electricity, or enough to power about 600,000 homes.
Local control debate
The Delaware law challenged in the lawsuit was also at the center of a political battle that last year nearly derailed the passage of the state’s capital budget.
During the final days of Delaware’s 2025 legislative session, Democrats proposed Senate Bill 159, which would override Sussex County’s denial of a land-use permit for the US Wind substation.
Senate Republicans decried the bill as legislative overreach, but Democrats moved forward with it anyway. Because the GOP members did not have enough votes to defeat the legislation, they instead used their sole piece of leverage and blocked the state’s bond bill — which requires a supermajority to pass.
The move sent Democrats and Republicans into negotiations that lasted late into the night during the legislative session’s final hours.
At the time, State Sen. Stephanie Hansen (D-Middletown) called the US Wind project “foundational” for Delaware’s energy future.
But Senate Minority Whip Brian Pettyjohn (R-Georgetown) argued that Democrats sought to erode counties’ rights of “local control” — a theme that has since emerged in debates over marijuana regulations and affordable housing.
Ultimately, the two sides agreed on an amended bill, which promptly passed the Senate and the House of Representatives. Both chambers also later passed Delaware’s billion-dollar bond bill.
Brady, the lawyer representing Sussex County and a retired Delaware judge, said she thinks the court’s ruling Tuesday opens the possibility of the state legislature overriding other local government permit decisions.
“I think the General Assembly will do what they did in this case again because they’ve been told they can do it,” she said.
