A US federal judge has again ruled against President Donald Trump's campaign to stop wind power development, ordering the Pentagon to resume reviews that had effectively frozen onshore wind projects across the country.
US District Judge Karin Immergut, sitting in Portland, Oregon, granted a preliminary injunction on 6 August requiring the Department of Defense to resume national security assessments for wind turbines taller than 200 feet (61 metres). The case was brought by renewable energy trade groups and a coalition of states after the Pentagon, under Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, stopped conducting the routine reviews required before such turbines can be built.
The judge found that the department's failure to act violated statutory deadlines, according to the Environmental Defense Fund, one of the groups involved in the case. More than 100 utility-scale wind projects in 25 states had been left in limbo by the freeze, which began in mid-2025 and became near total by early 2026.
A pattern of legal defeats
The Oregon ruling is the latest in a series of court losses for the administration's wind policy. In December 2025, Judge Patti Saris of the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts vacated Trump's first-day executive order that had paused nearly all leasing and permitting for wind farms on federal land and in federal waters. She ruled the order was, in the words used in court filings, "arbitrary and capricious" and violated federal law.
That case was brought by 17 state attorneys general and the District of Columbia, led by New York's Letitia James, according to the Associated Press. Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell called the outcome a victory for renewable energy jobs. The government had argued the dispute was merely a policy disagreement outside the courts' jurisdiction, a position judges have consistently rejected.
“"There is no path forward to permit these projects in the U.S. for the foreseeable future."”
That statement, issued by Germany's RWE this month, points to a parallel strategy the administration has pursued alongside the litigation: paying developers to walk away rather than fight. RWE agreed to a $1.22 billion settlement with the US Department of the Interior to surrender offshore leases off New York, California and Louisiana, redirecting the funds toward gas and LNG projects instead.
European firms caught in the crossfire
For European readers, the story is not simply an American legal dispute. Ørsted of Denmark, RWE of Germany and Equinor of Norway are among the continent's largest energy companies, and all three have poured billions into US wind farms meant to supply power to states along the Atlantic coast. Equinor recently booked a $955 million writedown linked to delays at its Empire Wind project off New York, a project Trump had tried, and failed, to cancel outright.
Roughly $3.9 billion in taxpayer money has now been spent on buyouts to persuade companies to abandon offshore wind leases rather than continue fighting the administration in court, even as judges keep ruling the underlying freezes unlawful. Critics argue this approach lets the White House achieve its goal of killing projects without having to win in court.
Wind remains the largest single source of renewable electricity in the United States, providing roughly a tenth of the country's power supply, according to the American Clean Power Association. For Europe, where offshore wind is central to national decarbonisation targets and energy security plans following the disruption to Russian gas supplies, the fate of billions in US investment carries direct financial consequences for utilities and, ultimately, European consumers and pension funds with stakes in these companies.
The Department of Defense has said it continues to evaluate onshore wind projects to protect national security and military operations, but has not committed to a timeline for clearing the backlog. Further appeals are expected in both the Oregon and Massachusetts cases, meaning the legal battle over America's wind industry is far from over even as courts continue to side against the administration.
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