Overview
- The Justice Department withdrew its appeal on Monday, leaving a December 2025 Massachusetts district court ruling that vacated President Trump’s January 20, 2025 wind memorandum in place and restoring agencies’ authority to resume wind leasing and permitting.
- The Interior Department announced a $765 million settlement on Wednesday with Invenergy to terminate four undeveloped offshore wind leases and require that the money be invested in natural gas plants and western geothermal projects.
- Federal judges in multiple cases have found the administration’s wind stop‑work orders and related actions to be “arbitrary and capricious” under the Administrative Procedure Act, a legal standard that has repeatedly undone agency pauses and guidance.
- The buyouts are paid from federal funds commonly called the Judgment Fund and have already totaled roughly $2.6 billion this year, prompting state lawsuits and probes that argue the reimbursements and lease cancellations bypass proper procedure and harm clean‑energy planning.
- The deals have concrete project consequences for communities and grids — for example, Leading Light and Even Keel lease areas were estimated to support roughly 2 to 2.4 gigawatts each — and leave developers, investors and states weighing near‑term capacity, jobs and costs as court challenges proceed.