Input Stories

A federal judge upheld the Department of the Interior’s reviews of a Rhode Island wind farm, rejecting claims that it didn’t sufficiently account for harms to the environment or local historic sites—as well as scenic views (E&E News, subscription).

• The decision is a win for proponents of commonsense environmental regulation—like the NAM—who cheered the Supreme Court’s 2025 ruling that reined in abuses of the National Environmental Policy Act.

The ruling: Judge Amit Mehta of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia cited that ruling, which said that courts “should afford substantial deference and should not micromanage … agency choices so long as they fall within a broad zone of reasonableness.”

• Mehta ruled that the DOI’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management satisfied that requirement, having produced an assessment totaling 1,000 pages.
• Taking into account effects on air and water, as well as local tourism, BOEM did make mitigation efforts, including requiring “a paint color that makes the structures less visible during the day.”

Why it matters: The South Fork project, America’s first operational commercial-scale offshore wind farm, was completed in 2024.

• “At full capacity, the approximately 130-megawatt wind farm is capable of producing enough power for about 70,000 homes per year, according to developer Ørsted.”

However… “Mehta did … advance claims raised by the nonprofit Green Oceans and a group of historic property owners against the Army Corps’ approval of a Clean Water Act permit for construction and dredging on the South Fork project.”