Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced Friday that $679 million in federal funding has been withdrawn for 12 “doomed” offshore wind projects – including three in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.
The scrapped funding includes $10.5 million for Connecticut’s Bridgeport Port Authority Operations and Maintenance Wind Port project, $20.5 million for New Jersey’s Wind Port at Paulsboro and $48 million for Staten Island’s Arthur Kill Terminal.
The Trump administration plans to spend the withdrawn funds on “real infrastructure” and “restoring American maritime dominance.”
“Wasteful, wind projects are using resources that could otherwise go towards revitalizing America’s maritime industry,” Duffy said in a statement.
The transportation secretary went on to slam his predecessor at the agency and the previous president for directing taxpayer dollars to projects “that cost much and offer little.”
“Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg bent over backwards to use transportation dollars for their Green New Scam agenda while ignoring the dire needs of our shipbuilding industry,” Duffy said. “Thanks to President Trump, we are prioritizing real infrastructure improvements over fantasy wind projects.”
At a White House Cabinet meeting earlier this week, President Trump fumed that wind projects were “ruining our country.”
“We’re not allowing any windmills to go up,” the president said. “They’re ruining our country. They’re ugly, they don’t work, they kill your birds. They’re bad for the environment.”
“And if you look at them from a house, your house is worth less than 50%,” he added.
New Jersey’s offshore wind plans have been in disarray since 2023, when Orsted, a Danish green energy company, pulled the plug on two wind projects off the Garden State coast, despite having been approved for $1 billion in taxpayer-funded subsidies.
In Paulsboro, more than a dozen 400-foot-long steel pipes – that would’ve served as the foundations for massive offshore wind turbines – were already being sold as scrap metal late last year, according to NJ Advance Media.
Construction on Staten Island’s Arthur Kill Terminal hasn’t even started, despite the project being in the works for the last five years, SI Advance Media reported earlier this year.
The Arthur Kill Terminal is envisioned to function as a specialized port able to assemble offshore wind turbines and towers before they’re brought out to sea.
The project stalled after Trump signed an executive order in January halting permitting for offshore wind projects as the Arthur Kill Terminal was still awaiting one from the Army Corps of Engineers.
The company building the terminal said construction and operation of the faculty would create 750 jobs.
“The Trump Administration has refocused the Department of Transportation (USDOT) and its Maritime Administration (MARAD) on rebuilding America’s shipbuilding capacity, unleashing more reliable, traditional forms of energy, and utilizing the nation’s bountiful natural resources to unleash American energy,” the Department of Transportation said in a press release.
“Where possible, funding from these projects will be recompeted to address critical port upgrades and other core infrastructure needs of the United States,” the agency added.
