President Donald Trump has always been crystal clear about his disdain for wind farms, but his second term’s landmark effort to halt new wind farm construction has now been undermined by five rulings from federal courts.
Trump has called wind farms “ugly” eyesores. He has said they are “driving the whales crazy” and that wind energy “kills the birds.” He has also falsely claimed that the noise emanating from windmills can cause cancer.
Clearly, Trump has had particular contempt for offshore wind—the variant that places turbines dozens of miles into open water—ostensibly since a failed legal challenge against a proposed offshore wind farm near his Scottish golf course a decade ago. His scorn culminated in a Department of the Interior announcement in December that it had paused leases for five multibillion-dollar offshore wind farms on national security grounds, arguing wind turbines could interfere with radar signals.
On Monday, a federal judge ruled that Ørsted, a Danish energy giant developing one of those projects off the coast of New York State, could resume construction. It marked the fifth time in the past three weeks a federal judge had ruled against the Trump administration in the case, and now all five of the wind farms planned in federal waters have gotten the go-ahead. While the legal battle has not yet concluded, it’s another loss for Trump in his war against wind energy, which continues to scale in the U.S. despite the president’s attacks.
“After five rulings and five clear outcomes, it is time to move past litigation-driven uncertainty and allow these projects to finish the job they were approved to do,” Hillary Bright, executive director of offshore wind advocacy group Turn Forward, said in a statement.
A spokesperson from the Department of the Interior declined Fortune’s request for comment owing to pending litigation.
Wind power, and renewable energy at large, fared much better during Trump’s first year back in office than many had expected. In the first 11 months of 2025, wind and solar power combined accounted for nearly 90% of all newly installed generation capacity in the U.S., according to data released last week by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Massive growth for solar energy and battery storage in the past year was responsible for most of that, but wind power was no slouch either. The energy source represented nearly 16% of newly installed electricity generation last year, more than natural gas and second only to solar.
Wind is not only staying steady in the U.S.’s energy mix: Its share is rising. Between January and November of last year, more than 5,500 megawatts of new wind power were installed in the U.S., which is 71% more than had been built in the same period in 2024.
While the Trump administration has scrapped most federal funding for green energy and tried to litigate wind and other renewable energy projects into submission, investors have mostly remained sanguine about clean power’s prospects in the U.S. This has largely been the result of higher electricity prices and surging demand from data center projects.
The offshore farm in New York State ruled on this week, known as Sunrise Wind, is reportedly about halfway complete, and developers say it will eventually power 600,000 homes in the state. It is unclear whether the administration will seek to appeal any of the five decisions, but for now, Sunrise Wind is projected to start delivering electricity later this year.
