Offshore Wind Vs. Natural Gas Pipeline Slugfest Emerging In US

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Last Updated on: 24th August 2025, 12:18 pm

There they go again. The clown car that used to be known as the US government has brought its oversized shoes down upon the US offshore wind industry once again. This time the victim is the Revolution Wind project off the coast of Rhode Island, brought to a screeching halt by order of the Interior Department even though it is already 80% complete. Connecticut is also impacted because it is a partner in the project. And, once again, a proposed multistate gas pipeline is lurking in the background.

Nice Offshore Wind Project You Have There …

The Revolution stop-work order takes note of unspecified security concerns, which sounds rather mysterious if not downright sketchy. For some insights into the reasons for taking such an extreme measure, let’s take a quick look at the stop-work order that froze the Empire Wind project in New York State earlier this year. Empire is a project of the Norwegian diversified energy firm Equinor, and work was already well underway when the Interior Department brought the hammer down in April.

The freeze was a temporary one. According to multiple reports, New York State Governor Kathy Hochul struck a bargain with the White House, and the proposed Constitution gas pipeline was among the bargaining chips. Equinor’s status as a leading US oil and gas producer may have also factored into the de-freeze. As of this writing, work on Empire Wind is proceeding apace.

As for the Constitution pipeline, it was first proposed by the firm Williams in 2014 with the aim of bringing gas from Pennsylvania into New York State, to connect with offtakers in New England. State environmental officials redlighted the project in 2016, but Williams hung in there for a few more years before officially dropping the proposal in 2020. Now, suddenly, here it comes again, magically brought back to life.

Williams has other projects in the works throughout the US, and the benefits of the new pipeline to consumers in New England are unclear. However, for reasons best known only to Williams, the Constitution pipeline is reportedly on the fast track to approval.

… Shame If Anything Should Happen To It …

The Revolution Wind stop-work order could be a temporary one as well. Though, that remains to be seen. Its developer, the Danish firm Ørsted, does not have US oil and gas investments to bargain with.

However, there is a pipeline involved, and that’s where the Trump administration could apply some pressure on state officials in Rhode Island and Connecticut.

The pipeline in question is Project Maple. It comes under the umbrella of the Canadian firm Enbridge. As described in a letter of opposition signed by dozens of environmental groups and community organizations in the region, Project Maple is a rebrand of the former Access Northeast project, in which Enbridge proposed another in a series of expansions on its existing, 1,100-mile Algonquin Gas Transmission Pipeline from Pennsylvania to points east.

Enbridge mothballed Access Northeast back in 2017, but the project found its legs again in the form of Project Maple, shortly after the results rolled in from the 2024 Presidential election cycle.

“Enbridge wants to expand its 1,100-mile-long natural gas pipeline system, the Algonquin Gas Transmission Pipeline,” the Conservation Law Foundation noted in an update on April 18.

“This system runs from New Jersey through New York and into Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Massachusetts,” CLF elaborated.  “While the details are vague because this proposal is still in its early stages, we do know that Enbridge wants to replace existing pipelines, add new secondary pipelines, and expand compressor stations throughout the system’s route.”

The Tangled Web Of US Pipelines

If you have reason to believe that Project Maple is the end game of the Revolution Wind stop-work order, drop a note in the comment thread. Before you do, though, consider that Enbridge is a Canadian company. Relations between the Trump administration and Canadian companies have become rather frayed of late, to put it mildly.

Be that as it may, Pennsylvania is the nation’s second-largest producer of natural gas, and US-based gas producers that operate in Pennsylvania have an interest in seeing Project Maple spread its branches.

Besides, Enbridge is a pipeline owner and operator, not a construction firm. When Enbridge sets pipeline work in motion, the hands-on tasks are handled by the pipeline construction people, and that’s where things get interesting. Take a look over at Michigan, for example, where Enbridge seeks to replace its Line 5 oil and gas pipeline. The contractor on the project is the firm Barnard Construction, which is known for its billion-dollar work on Trump’s border wall. The Guardian is among the news organizations to pick up the Line 5 thread earlier this year.

“Donald Trump’s administration is being accused by activists of a quid pro quo as it attempts to fast-track a controversial fossil fuel pipeline proposal in Michigan that would in part be built by a donor with deep financial ties to the president,” The Guardian noted in March, adding that “the contractor is Tim Barnard, who, along with his wife, gave $1m to Trump’s campaign last year.”

Of course, this doesn’t mean that similar monkey business is afoot at Project Maple. It simply means that Enbridge does not appear to have suffered any political fallout from the hostilities sparked by the Trump administration’s tariff wars, at least for the time being.

Next Steps For The US Offshore Wind Industry

As for the US offshore wind industry, practically every state on the Eastern seaboard from Maine down to North Carolina has been banking on offshore wind to meet climate goals, stabilize fuel costs, and reduce their dependence on oil and gas shipped in from points west.

Now the whole industry is in jeopardy as the Trump administration puts the squeeze on the entire federal offshore lease program at one end, while monkey-wrenching Revolution Wind and other projects that have already started construction. States in “real America” are feeling the pain as well. Offshore wind advocates like to point out that offshore wind farms are vast, complicated infrastructure projects that create thousands of manufacturing jobs all over the US as well as portside jobs in their home states.

The deep red state of Louisiana, for example, lent its offshore oil and gas expertise to construct the nation’s very first offshore wind farm in the US almost 10 years ago, and Louisiana businesses continued to make major contributions to the industry on through this year.

Whelp, kiss that goodbye. It was only last year that Ørsted and the Louisiana shipbuilder Edison Chouest Offshore celebrated the launch of the first purpose-built offshore wind construction vessel made in the USA, the ECO Edison. That could be the last one Edison ever builds for the US market.

Meanwhile, Ørsted has complied with the stop-work order and is examining its options. Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont and Rhode Island Governor Dan McKee — both Democrats — have vowed to save the project. Perhaps they should take a look over at Virginia, where the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project is chugging merrily along, wrapped securely in the security blanket of support from Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin — for now.

Photo (cropped): The new Revolution Wind offshore wind project has been stopped by order of the Interior Department, even though it is 80% complete (courtesy of Ørsted).