The Trump administration has brought US onshore wind development to a halt citing national security concerns, representing a major escalation in the president’s crusade against renewable energy.
Approvals for about 165 onshore wind projects on private lands are being stalled by the Department of Defense, including wind farms which were awaiting final sign-off, others in the middle of negotiations and some that typically would not require oversight by the department, according to the American Clean Power Association (ACP) and people close to the matter.
Wind farms require routine approval from the defence department to ensure they do not interfere with radar systems. This typically involves the level of risk being assessed and the developer paying an agreed sum for the army to update its radar filter system so it can locate the windmill. Some projects can be deemed not to pose a risk due to their distance from army facilities and flight paths. Normally these assessments can take as little as a few days to complete.
Since August 2025, developers have faced a mix of setbacks, including not receiving expected communications from DoD, having meetings to discuss the status of their projects cancelled without the opportunity to reschedule, and being informed that the department has stopped processing their applications, according to people with knowledge of the situation.
The affected projects include 35 that had completed negotiations and are awaiting sign-off from the DoD—first reported by Axios in March.
More projects are now facing a shutdown—30 of which had undergone negotiations, received verbal signoffs and were waiting for written confirmation, about 50 are in the process of negotiations and 50 that previously would probably have been declared risk-free, according to developers and consultants.
The wind farms could generate 30 gigawatts, enough to power 15mn homes.
Letters sent to developers in early April said the agency was reviewing its processes for evaluating energy projects’ impact on national security.
The moves represent a dramatic escalation of the administration’s effort to shut down wind energy in the US, reaching for developments on private lands as well as public ones.
President Donald Trump has a particular animosity towards wind farms. He has called them the “worst form of energy” and said his “goal is to not let any windmill be built.”
Since its second term in office, the Trump administration has repeatedly tried to shut down work on several offshore wind sites in areas administered by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, also citing national security concerns, as well as other renewable energy projects on federal lands. Some of these actions have been thwarted in federal courts.
“This is so unprecedented,” said Jason Grumet, chief executive of the ACP. “The fact the administration is telling private landowners they’re not allowed to pursue economic activity and generate value from their property is hard to reconcile with conservative values.”
The administration has recently started refunding offshore wind leases in exchange for investments in fossil fuels, such as a $1 billion deal with TotalEnergies in March.
“The Trump administration’s attempts to block wind projects keep getting struck down in court, so it’s reaching for ever more extreme and absurd methods,” said Kit Kennedy, managing director for power at NRDC.
The DoD did not respond to a request for comment.
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