Supreme Court Won’t Hear Challenge to Wind Energy Project off Massachusetts Coast

The plaintiffs argued that a federal appeals court failed to follow a 2024 landmark precedent regarding federal agencies’ authority.

The U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington on April 3, 2025. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

The Supreme Court decided on May 5 not to hear a challenge to the federal government’s approval of a major offshore wind project off the Massachusetts coast.

The court’s decision came without comment in an unsigned order in Seafreeze Shoreside Inc. v. Department of the Interior. No justices dissented. The lead petitioner, Seafreeze Shoreside, is a seafood processing company.

The project, known as Vineyard Wind 1, is located 15 miles off the coast of Nantucket Island.

The case goes back to 2021, when the Biden administration approved dozens of wind energy generation projects on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) off the Atlantic, Pacific, and Gulf coasts “in a rush to replace fossil fuels as this nation’s primary source of electricity,” according to the petition filed by Seafreeze and other parties challenging the project’s approval.

The shelf refers to all submerged land and seabed that belongs to the United States and is outside the jurisdiction or authority of individual U.S. states.

The departments of the Interior, Commerce, and Defense jointly issued the environmental impact statement required by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which led to approval of Vineyard Wind 1. This was “the first of many such large-scale, industrial offshore wind energy projects slated for the OCS,” the petition said.

The petitioners challenged the project, saying it was not allowed under the NEPA and the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA).

“The record showed the project would result in momentous adverse impacts on marine navigation, public safety, the environment, and national security,” the petition said.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit declined to hear an appeal of a lower court ruling that allowed the project to move forward.

The petitioners, who are represented by the conservative Texas Public Policy Foundation, said in the petition that this decision conflicts with the Supreme Court’s landmark 2024 ruling in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, which found that courts must “exercise their independent judgment in deciding whether an agency has acted within its statutory authority.”

The First Circuit did not follow established precedents and “impermissibly deferred” to the federal government’s interpretations of the NEPA and OCSLA, which created a conflict between its ruling and previous Supreme Court decisions, the petition said.

The circuit court has “unlawfully sanctioned the federal government’s approval of the first of many such planned, enormous wind energy projects scheduled to industrialize the pristine waters of America’s outer Continental Shelf … a decision that has grave adverse consequences for marine safety, the environment, and national security,” the petition said.

This is a developing story and will be updated.