OCEAN CITY, Md. - In a blow to the Trump Administration’s efforts to stop an offshore wind project off the coast of Delmarva, a federal judge has denied the government’s motion to remand and vacate the previous Biden Administration’s approval of the project, according to court documents obtained by WBOC.
U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland Judge Stephanie Gallagher’s order, handed down on Thursday, Dec. 4, is the latest development in an ongoing lawsuit filed by Ocean City and numerous other local plaintiffs against the federal government’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, then under the Biden Administration, over its approval of US Wind’s proposed project.
The project would see the construction of 114 wind turbines off the coast of Worcester and Sussex Counties, with undersea cables bringing power to a substation near 3Rs Beach.
US Wind
That lawsuit has become increasingly complex following the government’s transition from the Biden Administration to the Trump Administration. In keeping with President Trump’s staunch disapproval of offshore wind energy, US Wind quickly found its federal support in the District Court of Maryland vanishing, seemingly leaving the company to defend the project on its own.
In fact, an apparent new cooperation between the federal government and Ocean City in their resistance to the offshore proposal and the desire to remand and vacate approval recently drew outrage from US Wind.
“Their coordinated position on this point is troubling, to say the least, where the Plaintiffs appear to have welcomed their adversary - the Federal Defendants - into their team and given them broad license to determine the fate of the [Construction and Operation Plan], separate from their own lawsuit,” a US Wind response filed on Dec. 1 reads.
On Sept. 12, the federal government filed a motion for voluntary remand and vacatur of the previous administration’s approval of the project. The motion would allow the Trump Administration to revoke the full approval based on alleged mistakes made by the Biden Administration in issuing it. The Trump Administration would then reassess whether it would reissue the approval with changes or terminate it entirely.
In requesting the remand and vacatur, the government also moved to dismiss Ocean City’s lawsuit, arguing there would be no contention over the project if its approval had been revoked.
“The remand should be with vacatur because BOEM has concluded that its prior conclusion was in error, and because the case and project are still in the early phases, meaning no party will be prejudiced,” the government’s motion reads.
Months later, on Dec. 4, 2025, Judge Gallagher sided with US Wind and denied the government’s motion for voluntary remand with vacatur. The government’s request to dismiss the case was also denied.
The fight over US Wind’s project off Delmarva is far from over, however. With federal approval currently still in place, Ocean City’s lawsuit against the federal government and US Wind remains ongoing.
Judge Gallagher’s denial of the government’s motion on Thursday was without prejudice, meaning the Trump Administration could still pursue remand, vacatur, and dismissal at a later juncture in court.
US Wind has also expressed doubt that the Trump Administration would back off from seeking to reverse the Biden Administration’s approval, even with the District Court’s denial of the motion.
“We believe that in fact a decision, a final decision has been made to vacate the approval for this project,” an attorney representing US Wind told Judge Gallagher in October. “We believe that that is established by the Government’s filings which show that the Presidential Wind Memorandum has culminated in a determination that the COP was not properly approved. And as you just heard, the Government intends to proceed on that basis regardless of what the Court does.”
In anticipation of the government’s pursuit of a remand and vacatur outside of the District Court, US Wind filed a cross motion seeking a preliminary injunction against the Trump Administration to keep it from not only remanding the approval, but otherwise undermining the project or altering the approval in any way while Ocean City’s lawsuit continues.
That motion, if approved, would restrain and enjoin the government “from taking any action to vacate, remand, withdraw, rescind, or in any way undermine US Wind’s Construction and Operations Plan approval,” according to US Wind’s motion obtained by WBOC.
Filed in October, the motion for the injunction is now slated to be argued in front of Judge Gallagher next week.
WBOC will continue to provide the latest updates on the ongoing litigation over US Wind’s proposed project off the shores of Delmarva.
