Wes Moore, developer vows to push forward with offshore wind despite major blows from feds

OCEAN CITY, Md. (WBFF) — Maryland’s governor and an Italian wind energy developer said they remain undeterred in bringing offshore turbines to the state’s coastline despite facing three major setbacks from the federal government this past week that could jeopardize the projects’ immediate future.

Spotlight on Maryland asked Maryland Gov. Wes Moore’s office on Friday and Saturday about how a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s corrective action letter, a presidential executive order targeting wind energy, and a federal judge’s decision to allow a lawsuit against offshore wind development, all occurring within the last nine day, might impact the governor’s energy goals.

Moore’s spokesperson, Carter Elliott, said in an email Saturday afternoon that the governor plans to move forward with offshore wind projects the state has approved.

Maryland remains committed to offshore wind in the state, despite a new set of challenges presented by the current federal administration,” Elliott said.

US Wind, Inc., an Italy-based energy company and the only developer holding an offshore construction permit from Maryland regulators, echoed the governor’s office commitment to building more than 114 wind turbines along the state’s coastline.

“We are confident that all of our project’s permits were validly issued,” said Nancy Sopko, US Wind’s vice president of external affairs. “We are very committed to delivering this important energy project.”

A two-page letter the EPA sent on Monday to the secretary of the Maryland Department of the Environment disagreed with US Wind’s position, writing that the state-issued permits “identified the incorrect appeals process and provided conflicting information about the appeals process for this permit on its website.”

Failure to rectify this error could result in invalidation of the permit on appeal and confusion among relevant stakeholders with respect to where to bring such an appeal,” the EPA wrote.

The EPA noted that Maryland’s environmental department incorrectly specified that public and community grievances with the issued wind energy permit should be filed with the state instead of the EPA’s environmental appeals board.

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Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md., who represents the state’s coastline region, praised the EPA’s decision in a statement to Spotlight on Maryland on Friday evening.

“The EPA has confirmed what many of us knew for years – this project was approved with glaring procedural and legal flaws,” Harris said. “The Maryland Department of the Environment had no business directing the public to appeal a federal permit to a state court, and such a decision showed both incompetence and a disregard for public input from my affected constituents in Worcester County.”

This ruling is a major victory for the Eastern Shore, the environment, and our local economies that are existentially threatened by this project,” Harris added.

Meanwhile, as a cornerstone of Moore’s accelerated green energy agenda announced within the first three months of being sworn in as Maryland’s 63rd governor, offshore wind energy generation has been a key part of his 100% carbon-free power pledge by 2035.

Elliott told Spotlight on Maryland via email on Saturday that the governor’s vision remains unchanged.

We’re committed because offshore wind energy generation brings with it new clean energy investments and manufacturing jobs and added supply to the state’s generation base, at a time when more supply is needed to reduce prices to Maryland ratepayers,” Elliott said.

Spotlight on Maryland reported on Tuesday that a 90-acre riverside port leased by US Wind at Tradepoint Atlantic, which Moore praised in April 2023 as a site that would make Maryland the “green energy capital” of the nation, had not yet been built. The site was pledged to be operational by 2025, employing more than 550 workers.

Images of the US Wind site Spotlight on Maryland, obtained by flying a drone along the Patapsco River, showed that the location appeared inactive. US Wind said the site’s construction is set to begin next year.

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Offshore wind federal investments, or subsidies, suffered a notable hit on Monday after President Donald Trump signed an executive order hyper-focused on offshore wind development.

Trump’s executive order, dubbed ‘Ending Market Distortion Subsidies for Unreliable, Foreign Controlled Energy Sources,’ will target internationally owned companies seeking to build green energy power plants in the United States.

For too long, the Federal Government has forced American taxpayers to subsidize expensive and unreliable energy sources like wind and solar,” the executive order said. “Moreover, reliance on so-called ‘green’ subsidies threatens national security by making the United States dependent on supply chains controlled by foreign adversaries.”

“Within 45 days following enactment of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the Secretary of the Treasury shall take all action[it] deems necessary and appropriate to strictly enforce the termination of the clean electricity projection and investment tax credit,” the executive order adds.

The executive order and EPA decision happened in the same week a federal district court judge allowed most of a lawsuit filed last fall by the Town of Ocean City, Md., and 34 other co-plaintiffs to proceed against the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and the U.S. Department of the Interior.

U.S. District Court Judge Stephanie Gallagher denied US Wind’s motion to dismiss the entire lawsuit. The judge dismissed only three of the eight complaints against the federal government regarding the offshore wind project.

The setbacks for Maryland’s offshore wind energy industry arise as PJM Interconnection, the region’s power grid operator, has said for more than a year that the state faces limited new electricity generation coming online to replace coal and natural gas power plants closing.

Spotlight on Maryland asked Nick Alexopulos, senior manager of communications at Baltimore Gas and Electric, the state’s largest natural gas and electric utility, during an interview on Thursday, if Maryland was heading toward an energy cliff of not having enough power to keep the state’s lights on.

“Maryland has very real energy challenges,” Alexopulos said. “The governor and the general assembly acknowledge and began in earnest to address it in this past session.”

Alexopulos added that Maryland is facing issues with a concept called “resource adequacy.”

What does that mean? That means Maryland doesn’t have enough power plants to meet the demand of its residents,” Alexopulos said.

According to PJM Interconnection’s website, Maryland had to import more than 4,300 megawatts of electricity to meet the state’s energy demands at 7:00 p.m. on Saturday.

Using PJM’s conversion formula and U.S. Census data, the amount of electricity imported during Saturday was equivalent to what would have been needed to power all of Maryland’s 2.3 million households and some of the state’s commercial needs.

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Spotlight on Maryland is a collaboration between FOX45 News, WJLA in Washington, D.C., and The Baltimore Sun.