offshore wind

The judge who declared President Trump’s blocking of offshore wind unlawful will likely wait to see what the administration does before taking enforcement action, one of the plaintiffs said.

On Monday, U.S. District Court Judge Patti B. Saris said the memo was arbitrary and gave no reasoned explanation.

The Department of Energy said the $7.6 billion in canceled grants do not meet the Trump administration’s goals.

The Trump administration asked a federal judge to allow it to revoke a key permit for SouthCoast Wind, a project that could power about 1.4 million homes in the region.

Getting information about the state’s only offshore wind project under construction has been difficult in the last six months. CAI and the Martha’s Vineyard Times teamed up last week to visit Vineyard Wind by boat, to see what visual evidence we could find of the project status.

The settlement will allow the town to create a fund to compensate local businesses for their losses, officials said.

Lauren Diggin, a spokesperson for the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources, said “the changing federal landscape” makes finalizing contracts difficult.

Monday is the signing deadline for the state’s latest round of offshore wind contracts, but it’s unclear if any of the developers selected in September plan to sign.

The chair of the Sierra Club's Cape and Islands group says support for the wind lawsuit may be broader than it appears — including in some Republican-led states. But if the states win, the Trump administration could find ways to work around it.