By MARY BURKE

Capital News Service

WASHINGTON – In August, the Trump administration revoked hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding for Maryland renewable energy infrastructure projects. 

The Maryland Offshore Wind Project and the Maryland Solar for All initiatives took significant blows after President Donald Trump cancelled grants for renewable projects across the nation.

Trump has described wind and solar as “expensive and unreliable energy sources,” seeking instead to promote domestic fossil fuel production.

Since the onset of his administration, Trump has signed 15 executive orders shifting federal policy away from renewable energy initiatives toward more traditional energy sources such as oil and coal.

Maryland Offshore Wind Project

On Sept. 12, the Trump administration filed a court order to reconsider approval of the Offshore Wind Project in its entirety. Despite a revocation of federal funding, Maryland Offshore Wind Project officials expect to win a legal challenge to the order.

“We intend to vigorously defend those permits in federal court, and we are confident that the court will uphold their validity and prevent any adverse action against them,” Nancy Sopko, US Wind’s vice president of external affairs said in a statement.

The Trump administration order is just the latest setback to the project. On Aug. 25, the administration filed a court order to revoke the federal government’s approval of funding for a steel manufacturing plant in Sparrows Point in Baltimore County.

The factory would provide steel for projects Marwin and Momentum Wind, which are wind energy farms being constructed off Maryland’s coast. The projects represent the first two of three planned phases of implementing offshore wind infrastructure in Maryland.

“The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (“BOEM”) is in the process of reconsidering its prior approval of the Maryland Offshore Wind Project Construction and Operations Plan,” the suit states.

US Wind, the developer behind the offshore construction project, filed a counterclaim on Sept. 3, contesting the Trump administration’s environmental and economic concerns.

“Federal Defendants’ decision to vacate represents a drastic departure from their prior full-throated support and defense of the Project, and Federal Defendants have failed to acknowledge or offer a reasoned explanation for their about-face,” the filing in the U.S. District Court in the District of Maryland states.

The counterclaim also alleges that the revocation of US Wind’s permits was due to “political pressure…applied to the Federal Defendants’ decisionmakers.”

The Sparrows Point project is also slated to continue, according to Sopko. 

On Aug. 29, the Department of Transportation announced that it would withdraw nearly $680 million from offshore wind projects, including nearly $50 million in federal funding for the nearly-completed wind turbine production facility in Maryland.

The Sparrows Point project and a dozen other wind projects lost federal funding due to a lack of alignment with the “goals and priorities of the administration,” according to a Transportation Department statement.

Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy indicated that these funds likely would be redirected into supporting the domestic maritime industry. 

As part of a larger Maryland Offshore Wind Project, US Wind established the manufacturing plant in Sparrows Point to supply materials for the in-state construction of wind turbines. In November 2023, the Department of Transportation’s Port Infrastructure Development Program (PIDP) awarded the $47 million in grant funding to help construct the factory. 

Talks of constructing a Maryland wind farm began as early as 2010, when the federal Bureau of Offshore Energy Management put out feelers for interest in wind energy ventures off the East Coast. 

In 2014, US Wind, Inc. won a bid for the 80,000-acre lease off the coast of Ocean City that would be the base for its Maryland Offshore Wind Project facilities. 

The wind farm project was approved for construction by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in 2024. Overall, the project was expected to cost around $2.6 billion. 

The Maryland Offshore Wind Project includes the construction of up to 114 wind turbines, along with four offshore substations and a meteorological tower. If completed, the wind farm would be able to power over 700,000 homes across the Delmarva Peninsula. 

Many Ocean City officials and business leaders have long opposed the project, citing concerns that the turbines will disrupt tourism and wildlife and hurt property values.

Phase 1 of the project’s construction was anticipated to be completed in 2029.

Maryland Solar For All

The Maryland Clean Energy Center, located in College Park, also saw a cancellation of over $62 million in EPA solar-related funding on Aug. 7. The grant was administered last year through the national $7 billion Solar For All program, which has since been cancelled. 

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced the end of the Solar For All program, stating that the “EPA no longer has the statutory authority to administer the program or the appropriated funds to keep this boondoggle alive.”

The Solar For All program, created by the Biden administration in April 2024, aimed to provide resources for residential solar projects in low-income areas. The grant to the Maryland Clean Energy Center would have helped to fund around 1,000 solar projects, adding a projected 10,000 households to solar power infrastructure. 

Trump has remained critical of solar projects’ impacts on farmland, disapproving of federal investment in such programs. 

“We will not approve…farmer destroying Solar,” Trump said in a Truth Social post. “The days of stupidity are over in the USA!” 

The Department of Energy earlier this month posted on X: “Wind and solar energy infrastructure is essentially worthless when it is dark outside, and the wind is not blowing.”

Critics pounced on the post as uninformed, pointing out that wind and solar systems use storage batteries.

California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom’s press office replied on X: “We’re excited for the Trump Admin to learn about BATTERIES (we have them here in California, and they’ve helped the Golden State shift to green, clean energy AND keep the lights on).”

The Maryland Clean Energy Center declined to comment for this story.