An offshore wind energy developer with plans to build 141 turbines off the coast of the Vineyard is pushing back against what it calls a “bad faith” campaign from the federal government to shut down renewable energy projects.

SouthCoast Wind, a project that received its major approvals in the waning days of the Biden administration, claimed in court filings last week that the government is pursuing a political agenda to dismantle the offshore wind industry with no legal basis to stand on.

The project was planned to be built on a 127,000-acre lease about 30 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard. But, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) has said that it intends to reconsider the project’s construction and operations plan.

In order to do that, BOEM has asked the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. to halt a lawsuit that was challenging the bureau’s approval of the project so the bureau can potentially go over the permitting process again. 

The lawsuit was filed by the town of Nantucket, which argued that impacts on small businesses and the Island’s tourism weren’t fully considered. In the eyes of SouthCoast Wind, the Trump administration has used these suits as a way to claw back approvals on projects. 

“Federal Defendants have no genuine legal basis to reconsider the [construction and operations plan]; they seek only to use remand to withdraw the [plan] approval and eliminate the Project,” SouthCoast Wind attorney Rafe Petersen wrote in response to the government’s motion last week. 

“This is evident through both the Trump administration’s obvious disdain for offshore wind and the fact that Federal Defendants’ Motion is a verbatim, copy-and-paste request to those made by Federal Defendants in other ongoing litigation challenging offshore wind,” Mr. Petersen continued. “This overt litigation tactic is made in bad faith without any legal authority or regard for the impact on SouthCoast Wind or the public at large.”

President Donald Trump on his first day in office ordered a review of all offshore wind leases to see if there was reason to terminate them on ecological, economic or environmental reasons. In a letter to the court, BOEM director Matthew said the permitting process for SouthCoast Wind failed to take into account all of the potential impacts of the project, necessitating the need to go over the operations plan again. 

BOEM reasoned that reopening the review process would not harm the SouthCoast Wind project because construction was not slated until 2027, and other permitting approvals from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration were not yet in hand. 

That reasoning is flawed though, according to SouthCoast Wind, because pushing the review process back could endanger the company’s ability to secure buyers for its prospective power. 

“[I]t is a matter of public record, and the Federal Defendants are aware, that SouthCoast Wind has until December 31, 2025 to execute Power Purchase Agreement with the States of Massachusetts and Rhode Island, and a remand of any length would jeopardize that deadline,” Mr. Petersen wrote. 

As the court weighs the arguments, SouthCoast Wind is, for now, giving up on the potential to connect to the grid in Falmouth. The company was planning to have its transmission cables land in Somerset and potentially in Falmouth, but in a letter to the state’s Energy Facilities Siting Board, said it was giving up on the latter location due to the uncertainty at the federal level. 

The company said it may reconsider reapplying in 2026, and it was eyeing Falmouth “as a potential connection point to the regional electric grid for its remaining capacity - a second 1,200 [megawatt] project.”