Vineyard Wind’s Massachusetts offshore wind project got the go-ahead in federal court Tuesday, with a judge stopping the Trump administration’s stop-work order tied to national security concerns and allowing the nearly finished project to keep moving forward. The decision was issued by U.S. District Court in Boston, where Judge Brian Murphy concluded that continuing the project—rather than halting work—best accounted for the potential economic harm from delays and the developers’ likelihood of success on their claims.
In a statement, Craig Gilvarg, a spokesperson for Vineyard Wind, said the company would “work with the Administration to understand the matters raised in the Order.” Gilvarg also said Vineyard Wind would “focus on working in coordination with its contractors, the federal government, and other relevant stakeholders and authorities to safely restart activities,” while continuing “to deliver a critical source of new power to the New England region.”
The administration had frozen offshore wind construction for multiple large projects days before Christmas, citing national security concerns, according to the lawsuit coverage described in the case. Vineyard Wind was one of five major East Coast projects halted at the time; Tuesday’s ruling allowed the Massachusetts project to continue and marked the fourth such project to be allowed to proceed after earlier court wins.
The judge’s reasoning at the hearing drew on Vineyard Wind’s stage of completion and the potential consequences of stopping work, with the project described as 95% complete and partially operational. Vineyard Wind is a joint venture between Avangrid and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners and is located about 15 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket. The project can produce nearly 600 megawatts for the New England electric grid, and before the pause it was on track to reach completion by the end of March with 62 turbines generating a total of 800 megawatts, according to the complaint described in the report.
At the same time, the case centered on the administration’s national security justification and how it was handled by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. In a court filing cited in the coverage, Matthew Giacona, acting director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, said he reviewed classified documents in November describing direct impacts to national security from operating offshore wind projects near early warning monitoring and radar systems. Giacona said he determined that Vineyard Wind’s ongoing activities did not “adequately provide for the protection of national security interests,” absent potential mitigation measures.
Despite that finding, Giacona said the bureau decided Vineyard Wind could continue partially operating during the suspension while it consulted with defense officials and the project owners. He also said he was not aware of any measures that would mitigate the national security risks. That procedural posture, including the government’s own decision to permit limited operations while it consulted defense authorities, formed part of the backdrop for the court’s intervention.
Tuesday’s ruling arrived as federal judges had already allowed three other paused offshore wind projects to restart construction after separate lawsuits, including the Revolution Wind project for Rhode Island and Connecticut by Ørsted, the Empire Wind project for New York by Equinor, and Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind for Virginia by Dominion Energy Virginia. Those rulings concluded, in broad terms described by a law professor tracking the litigation, that the government did not show a national security risk was so imminent that construction had to stop. Ørsted is also suing over the administration halting its Sunrise Wind project for New York, the fifth paused project, but it had not had a hearing at the time of the report.
Massachusetts political leaders and officials framed the court decision as critical to state energy planning and job support. Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell said completion of the project is essential to helping the state lower costs, meet rising energy demand, advance climate goals, and sustain thousands of good-paying jobs. U.S. Sen. Edward Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, welcomed the ruling, saying a stay was an important step in the process to fight the Trump administration’s “lawless attacks” on union jobs, grid security, and energy affordability, and that shutting off Vineyard Wind 1 would kill thousands of union jobs, prevent power from reaching 400,000 homes, and cause the state to lose out on $3 billion of energy savings.
The broader dispute over offshore wind has also drawn criticism and skepticism from some administration figures, along with arguments about the role of wind power in electricity pricing and environmental risk. The coverage cited statements by a White House spokesperson that the pause was meant to protect national security, and it also noted that President Donald Trump has targeted offshore wind, calling wind farms “losers,” according to the report. The report also said turbines can pose risks to birds and that the National Audubon Society believes developers can manage those risks, while climate change remains a greater threat.
Separately, health and environment officials have pointed to specific incidents involving wind technology. The report said Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. criticized the Vineyard Wind project after a blade failure, describing fiberglass fragments of a blade breaking apart and washing onto Nantucket beaches in July 2024 during the peak of the tourist season. The manufacturer, GE Vernova, agreed to pay $10.5 million in a settlement to compensate island businesses that suffered losses, the report said.