Reversing a sweeping executive order that froze federal clean-power permitting, the Department of Justice formally dropped its challenge against wind energy today. The sudden retreat ensures that major fossil fuel conglomerates will not miss out on billions in crucial renewable tax credits.
The Department of Justice quietly withdrew its appeal in federal court on Tuesday, effectively ending President Donald Trump’s moratorium on wind development. The abrupt reversal clears the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) to resume processing offshore lease sales, a move hailed as a massive regulatory victory for the environmental divisions of ExxonMobil, BP, and TotalEnergies.
Administration officials had spent the past year arguing that the towering turbines blighted the landscape and disrupted avian migration patterns. However, internal memos circulated last week at the Environmental Protection Agency highlighted that maintaining the freeze would inadvertently block over $14 billion in Inflation Reduction Act tax credits currently earmarked for multinational oil majors pivoting to "integrated energy solutions."
We spent months fighting these installations in court before someone at BOEM finally handed us a spreadsheet showing that the offshore wind supply chain is entirely owned by the exact same people who drill our deepwater crude.
The unfreezing of the permits means construction can now proceed on several massive offshore arrays in the Atlantic, projects which will allow oil majors to offset the emissions of their expanded deepwater drilling operations on paper. The resumption of the wind leases will be officially documented in the companies' next SEC climate disclosure filings, right alongside the industry's quietly abandoned 2030 net-zero pledges.
Environmental groups who originally sued to block the Trump order celebrated the administration's sudden surrender as a triumph for the climate. Meanwhile, BOEM is expected to finalize the next round of offshore wind and natural gas bundle leases just in time for upcoming Q3 earnings calls, ensuring the global transition to slightly more diversified corporate energy monopolies remains firmly on schedule.