AG Jennings files brief supporting offshore wind project

Attorney General Kathy Jennings has filed an amicus curiae (friend of the court) brief challenging the abrupt cancellation of a fully permitted offshore wind power project that would have delivered cheaper and cleaner energy to Delawareans.

In October 2024, U.S. Wind was approved to construct an offshore wind power turbine project off of the coast of Delaware and Maryland. The Trump Administration is now attempting to cancel that project despite approvals and permits already having been issued.

"Delawareans are already struggling with the rising cost of living, including surging energy prices. This project would deliver real relief to consumers who desperately need it. It was fully vetted, permitted, and approved," said Attorney General Kathy Jennings. "Now President Trump is trying to cancel it, for no discernible reason except as a giveaway to Big Oil. If this cancellation is allowed to stand - if the president is allowed to tamper with the market - it will make energy even more expensive when families can least afford it."

"My job is to advocate for the lowest utility rates for Delaware consumers consistent with reliable service, and put simply, we will pay more and have worse reliability if the US Wind Project doesn't move forward," said Delaware Public Advocate Jameson Tweedie. "The US Wind Project will provide Delawareans tens of millions of dollars in direct cost savings; potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in reduced energy, transmission, and congestion costs; infrastructure upgrades that would improve reliability; and an enormous source of renewable, predictable electricity. Especially considering the rapidly growing demand for electricity and the impacts it will have on cost and reliability, there simply are no other anticipated projects that would deliver the scale of predictable electricity generation into Delaware as the US Wind Project."

The U.S. Wind project would be the largest near-term energy development project on the Delmarva Peninsula and stands to substantially benefit Delawareans. The turbines, placed eleven miles offshore, would barely be visible from the coast but would deliver hundreds of megawatts of newly-generated electricity to an interconnection in Sussex County. The additional energy supply would reduce local energy prices by an estimated $253 million during the contract term. That sum does not include savings generated from credits that Delaware would receive for the clean energy generated.

The brief weighs in on a legal battle that began with lawsuit filed belatedly by Ocean City, Maryland challenging U.S. Wind's offshore project, which had already been in motion for more than a decade and was fully approved by the state and federal governments. On September 12, 2025, the Department of the Interior abruptly reversed course and filed a motion to vacate and remand the project approval. When the Court ordered briefing on that motion, the federal government then sought to stay the proceedings indefinitely. Jennings' brief supports U.S. Wind's effort to prevent unilateral action revoking the approvals.

As AG Jennings' brief notes, U.S. Wind made several commitments to minimize the environmental and community impact of the project:

• Sampling, testing, and engineering and operational controls to reduce water turbidity during construction and dredging.
• Funding for training of local marine emergency response personnel, and improvement of the dock structures and access channels that they use.
• Additional channel markers and depth surveys for purposes of navigation.
• Construction of a docking, offloading, and landing facility for commercial fish and shellfish harvesters.
• Establishing a maintenance and research fund to support research or resource management projects related to impacts from its infrastructure and operations in Delaware.
• Funding maintenance or upgrades to State-owned recreational facilities to compensate for potential inconvenience to recreational users of the Inland Bays.
• Mitigation measures, including funding the Okie Preserve Habitat and Shoreline Protection Project or a similar ecological restoration project in the Inland Bays, in light of temporary impacts to wetlands during dredging operations.

The U.S. Wind case is part the Trump Administration's coordinated attack on offshore wind projects. The federal government has also issued stop-work orders or attempted to revoke final approvals for approved-and in some cases partially built-wind projects in New York, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and New Jersey.

Read the full amicus brief here.

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