A court decision remanding prior approvals for a wind energy project off New Jersey could pose a new threat to offshore turbine arrays under construction, as the Trump administration presses its relentless campaign against them.
Local activist group Save Long Beach Island had sought a remand and reconsideration of the project’s construction and operations plan, approved in October 2024 in the waning days of the Biden administration.
Save LBI contended that BOEM failed to adequately consider the project’s likely effects under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, Endangered Species Act and National Environmental Policy Act, among other federal laws.
Judge Cobb’s ruling is significant in both allowing BOEM to reconsider Atlantic Shores, and allowing that to proceed even as other litigation continues over the administration’s efforts to thwart projects approved during the Biden administration.
One is the so-called Zerzan opinion, a legal directive issued by Gregory Zerzan, the acting Solicitor of the U.S. Department of the Interior in May 2025, calling for Interior to withdraw construction and operations permits that interfere with other uses such as commercial fishing.
Renewable energy advocates sought to derail that push, and in April Chief Judge Denise Casper of the U.S. District Court in Massachusetts issued a preliminary injunction blocking the enforcement of the Zerzan opinion.
The latest ruling again opens the door to reconsider permits, said Thomas Stavola Jr., an attorney for Save LBI: “It reaffirms BOEM’s inherent authority to reconsider approvals, confirms that the agencies can still obtain remand based upon reasons other than the currently enjoined Zerzan Opinion, as we’ve argued, and holds that a developer’s complaints about undue harm do not preclude remand.”
“Save Long Beach Island welcomes the BOEM request and the Court’s decision to remand the Atlantic Shores approvals, and it is satisfying to finally see Agency and judicial validation of the many significant concerns we have been highlighting,” said Save LBI president Bob Stern.
The Atlantic Shores project was on the ropes just weeks after Trump’s inauguration and his declared offensive against wind power.
In late January 2025 equity partner Shell withdrew from Atlantic Shores, writing down its investment in the project by $996 million. "We just don’t see that it fits both our capabilities nor the returns that we would like," Shell chief financial officer Sinead Gorman said at the time.
In March 2025 the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency pulled back an already fully executed emissions permit for Atlantic Shores’ construction.
The prospect of more permit reversals is alarming renewable energy advocates.
“The law says you shouldn’t be able to remand if there’s bad faith,” Josh Kaplowitz, an attorney with Troutman Pepper Locke specializing in offshore wind, told Recharge News. “And I think that there’s abundant evidence of bad faith, that this is all pretextual…It’s just finding every hook they can to stymie offshore wind.”
