Dominion files suit against Trump administration, says halting wind project is 'arbitrary and illegal'

Gavin Stone, The Virginian-Pilot on Dec 24, 2025

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Dominion Energy is suing the Trump administration following its decision Monday to suspend the federal lease for the wind-power project off the coast of Virginia Beach just months before it was slated to start producing energy after more than 10 years of work.

The Interior Department paused the leases for five offshore wind projects, citing national security risks identified by the Defense Department. Those risks, the Interior Department said, include unclassified reports that the wind turbines create radar interference called “clutter” that could cause them to obscure legitimate targets or create false targets.

The 2.6-gigawatt Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project is slated to have 176 turbines more than 25 miles off the coast.

In response to the claims of a national security risk, Dominion said in the lawsuit that its organization has employees with clearance to review classified information but were not given a chance to do so prior to the order, which Dominion describes as “arbitrary and illegal.”

Dominion argued that it has had two turbines operating in the project area for the last five years without any issue for national security, and pointed to the years of work alongside regulatory agencies and the military as evidence of the project’s viability.

Additionally, the agency that issued the order, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, itself was among the other agencies that granted the project the approvals it needed to move forward.

“BOEM and myriad other federal, state, and local agencies conducted extraordinarily thorough reviews of (the project) and carefully considered its potential impacts,” the lawsuit reads. “The overwhelming consensus of scientific organizations is that offshore wind’s impacts on national security and the environment are neither appreciable nor unmanageable, and (Dominion) has adopted and adhered to a robust suite of environmental safeguards to ensure that outcome.”

While work is stopped, Dominion said it will cost the utility $5 million per day and jeopardize their ability to complete the project in 2026 because some of the vessels used in construction have to be reserved years in advance, among other challenges.

“Stopping (the project) for any length of time will threaten grid reliability for some of the nation’s most important war fighting, AI, and civilian assets. It will also lead to energy inflation and threaten thousands of jobs,” Dominion said in a news release.

“CVOW enjoys bipartisan support and is within months of generating a massive 2,600 megawatts to support the fastest growing part of America’s energy grid. This growth serves the largest concentration of critical infrastructure in the world.”

Dominion is asking the court to issue a temporary restraining order against the Department of the Interior which will allow work on the project to continue.

The $11.2 billion project will create about 2,000 jobs and is estimated to generate more than $143 million in economic output, along with $57 million in pay and benefits, $2 million in revenue for local governments and $3 million in Virginia tax revenue, according to Dominion. The project was slated to start producing energy in early 2026.

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