The last of the five was Ørsted’s Sunrise Wind project, which received a preliminary injunction on 2 February 2026 in the US District Court for the District of Columbia. That follows another preliminary injunction from the same court on 12 January for Revolution Wind (a 50:50 joint venture between Ørsted and Skyborn Renewables). In press statements, Ørsted referred to a lawsuit it had filed about an earlier stop work in August 2025.

Also in January, Vineyard Wind obtained an injunction from the US District Court of Massachusetts. Empire Wind received an injunction from the US District Court for the District of Columbia, and Revolution Wind from the same court.

On 22 December, Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum said: ‘Today’s action addresses emerging national security risks, including the rapid evolution of the relevant adversary technologies and the vulnerabilities created by large-scale offshore wind projects with proximity near our east coast population centres.’

The official press release also cited risks in ‘recently completed classified reports’ by the US government’s military arm, as well as unclassified reports from the US government, which have ‘long found that the movement of massive turbine blades and the highly reflective towers create radar interference called “clutter.” The clutter caused by offshore wind projects obscures legitimate moving targets and generates false targets in the vicinity of the wind projects’.

In the case of both Revolution Wind and CVOW (Coastal Viginia Offshore Wind), the judges who ordered the injunction reportedly dismissed the national concerns as overblown. The Revolution Wind judge Royce Lambert is understood to have reviewed the confidential report himself.

In summing up the situation, a blog on legal news site Mondaq dated 6 February 2025 concludes: ‘While final decisions on the merits of the cases challenging the offshore wind stop-work order remain to be considered, the developers have claimed victory in all of the preliminary injunction hearings thus far. This may suggest that the government faces an uphill battle where it seeks to stop major infrastructure projects that received prior approval and have advanced in their construction.’

On 29 January, the American Clean Power Association (ACP) published a report estimating that cancelling the projects, which combined offer 6 GW of power, would raise electricity costs by $45bn. ‘It’s a simple supply and demand equation at this point. The demand for energy is increasing, and we need all forms of energy to meet this demand – including offshore wind – or customers will end up paying for it,’ said John Hensley, Senior Vice President of Markets and Policy Analysis at ACP.