By Mark Chediak and Madlin Mekelburg | Updated on Jun 12, 2026 at 07:54 PM
Renewable energy groups asked a federal judge to order the US Defense Department to lift its freeze on approvals of wind energy projects that has threatened billions of dollars of investments.
The Pentagon has stopped reviews of wind farms to determine whether they interfere with military operations, a process that previously had been conducted in a timely fashion, the groups said in a filing Friday in Oregon federal court.
“The result has been an effective freeze on utility-scale land-based wind projects” requiring Defense Department review, according to the filing. The groups said more than 100 projects across 25 states area have already been affected, resulting in billions of dollars in “sunk costs.”
The freeze is the latest in a series of actions taken by the Trump administration to stymie the wind industry as President Donald Trump has vowed that new US turbines won’t be installed on his watch.
On his first day in office, Trump issued a moratorium on approvals of wind projects on federal lands and waters, a decree that was ruled illegal in December by a federal judge in Boston. Earlier this week, the administration withdrew its appeal of that ruling.
The Interior Department also issued stop-work orders on five offshore wind farms although courts have allowed those projects to continue after legal challenges by developers.
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In March, the administration paid French company TotalEnergies SE $1 billion to walk away from its US offshore wind leases — a deal that is also being challenged in court.
The Pentagon’s blocking of onshore wind project reviews was flagged by a group of US congress members in a letter last month to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth that called for the Defense Department to address the issue.
About $50 billion in wind investments and 150,000 jobs are imperiled by the Trump administration’s effective halt to approvals, the American Clean Power Association, an industry trade group, said in a document reviewed by Bloomberg News.
The Defense Department has effectively stopped making determinations of wind projects to be sent to the Federal Aviation Administration, which must issue its own determination before projects can go forward, according to the suit.
The case is Renewable Northwest v. Hegseth, 3:26-cv-01092, US District Court, District of Oregon (Portland).