Rough seas for offshore wind: A hard look at causes for delay

The Clean Air Task Force (CATF) conducted a quantitative analysis of 15 completed NEPA cases against 10 offshore wind projects to determine if environmental review litigation meaningfully delays development. The study found that NEPA litigation is largely unsuccessful in stopping projects, with only one case (Cape Wind) significantly contributing to a project's cancellation. The average length of a NEPA case was approximately 2.5 years, and none of the seven motions for preliminary injunctions in the dataset were granted. Instead, the document identifies the actual drivers of industry delays as strong community opposition, misinformation regarding right whales, supply chain disruptions caused by the pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and high interest rates. CATF concludes that gutting NEPA would not speed up development but would undermine informed decision-making and community engagement.

• Quantitative analysis of 15 completed NEPA cases against 10 offshore wind projects indicates that such litigation is not a significant threat to development timelines, with 75% of cases concluding in 3 years or less and an average duration of around 2.5 years.
• The Cape Wind project is identified as a high-profile outlier where NEPA legal battles fought over a decade contributed heavily to its cancellation; however, this occurred when the permitting process was in its infancy.
• Legal challenges under NEPA rarely result in project halts; in the studied dataset, none of the seven motions for preliminary injunctions were granted, and only one case successfully forced a new round of environmental review.
• The primary barriers to offshore wind development are not regulatory processes like NEPA, but rather a combination of community opposition, misinformation about right whales, supply chain issues stemming from the pandemic and Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and rising financing costs due to interest rate increases in the U.S. and Europe.

APA

Barry, E. (2025). Rough seas for offshore wind: A hard look at causes for delay. Clean Air Task Force. https://www.catf.us/2025/01/rough-seas-offshore-wind-hard-look-causes-delay/

Chicago

Barry, Erin. Rough seas for offshore wind: A hard look at causes for delay. Clean Air Task Force, 2025. https://www.catf.us/2025/01/rough-seas-offshore-wind-hard-look-causes-delay/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Barry |first1=Erin |title=Rough seas for offshore wind: A hard look at causes for delay |publisher=Clean Air Task Force |date=29 January 2025 |url=https://www.catf.us/2025/01/rough-seas-offshore-wind-hard-look-causes-delay/ |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{barry2025rough, author = {Barry, Erin}, title = {{Rough seas for offshore wind: A hard look at causes for delay}}, institution = {Clean Air Task Force}, year = {2025}, month = jan, url = {https://www.catf.us/2025/01/rough-seas-offshore-wind-hard-look-causes-delay/}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }