A federal agency appeals board has upheld the Environmental Protection Agency’s suspension of approved permits for a massive wind power venture off New Jersey’s coast in compliance with President Donald Trump’s Jan. 20 executive action imposing an immediate freeze in offshore wind development and leasing.
It could be the first of many similar remands, or reconsiderations, of issued permits in coming months as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), under the president’s directive, pauses wind power projects that have been permitted but haven’t started construction.
The Atlantic Offshore Wind Project, a collaboration between Shell New Energies US, a subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell, and San Diego-based EDF Renewables North America, spans more than 400 square miles across three lease areas within 20 miles of the New Jersey coast between Atlantic City and Barnegat Light on Long Beach Island.
Its Project 1 was a proposal to build 192 turbines less than nine miles off the coast to generate 1.5 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind energy, enough electricity to power more than 700,000 homes, by 2027.
Despite the allure of carbon-free electricity that proponents claimed would eventually power more than 1 million New Jersey homes and businesses, Atlantic Shore’s Project 1 was widely opposed by many local residents as an eyesore too close to shore and too visible to vacation rentals and beaches that teem with summer visitors from New York City and Philadelphia.
Save LBI’s petition demanding a review of the decision of the EPA’s Region 2 to grant the permit is what led the agency to remand the approval in February. Atlantic Shores appealed that determination, and the EAB upheld it on March 14.
Save LBI’s final suit questioned the EPA’s emissions modeling and the potential effects on marine mammals, human health, and the local tourist economy by “offshore wind industrialization.”
Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-N.J.), whose New Jersey Congressional District 2 spans much of the state’s coast from Long Beach Island and Atlantic City to Cape May, raised the issue with Trump—already an outspoken critic of windmill power generation—while he was campaigning and before assuming office on Jan. 20.
Two weeks after Trump’s order, New Jersey’s utilities board suspended its approvals for Atlantic Shores, citing “uncertainty driven by federal actions and permitting” and Shell’s withdrawal from the project.
A Mighty Blowback
“The offshore wind industry is currently facing significant challenges, and now is the time for patience and prudence,” Gov. Phil Murphy said in a Feb. 3 statement, adding he hoped “the Trump Administration will partner with New Jersey to lower costs for consumers, promote energy security, and create good-paying construction and manufacturing jobs.”In compliance with Trump’s executive order, EPA Region 2 submitted a motion for voluntary remand of the final September 2024 permit for Atlantic Shores Project 1 and Project 2 in February, preventing the project from advancing until the federal review process concludes.
The EPA does not “identify any provision” of any federal law or “regulatory obligation that would justify a remand,” Atlantic Shores stated.
“Instead,” it wrote, “the motion relies solely on a recent Presidential Memorandum that, on its face, does not apply to the final permit.”
In its nine-page response, the EAB stated that “it is well established that the board has broad discretion to grant a voluntary remand” and that it “treats requests for voluntary remand liberally and is not limited to circumstances where the region provides specific substantive changes to the final permit or specific elements of the permit decision it seeks to reconsider.”
The board said circumstances “support a voluntary remand” of the permit, noting it is merely suspended, not denied.
The EPA “has clearly stated its intent to reconsider the project and permit decision in light of the presidential memorandum. As the region explained, it seeks remand of the permit to include it and the permit application ‘in the comprehensive review of permitting practices called for in the memorandum,’” the board stated.
“However, the order’s pause on new permits puts much of this capacity at risk of never being constructed,” FactSet said in its analysis.
Projects in the early stages of the development process and those in the middle stages that have yet to secure a permit account for 89 percent of undeveloped wind projects, FactSet said.
Despite the suspension to review its formerly approved project, local opposition, and what it described as the president’s visceral dislike for “windmills,” Atlantic Shores is not abandoning its proposal. It got a permit once, it can do so again, the company said.
“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,” its March 17 statement reads.
