The Trump administration’s order to stop construction of the nearly completed Revolution Wind project is putting hundreds of offshore workers out of a job — including dozens of local fishermen who voted for President Donald Trump and are asking him to reverse course.
A week ago, the acting director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Matthew Giacona, ordered the Danish wind developer Ørsted to stop all offshore work on the Revolution Wind farm so the federal government can“address concerns related to the protection of national security interests of the United States.” Giacona did not specify the nature of those security concerns.
Construction began on the 704-megawatt project in January 2024 and is now 80% complete, according to Ørsted. The wind farm is being built off the coast of Massachusetts and Rhode Island in a federally designated “wind energy area” that received sign-offs from multiple branches of the military, Canary Media reported Sunday.
Though often seen as opposed to offshore wind, many New England fishermen have made peace with the industry in recent years.
They increasingly rely on part-time salaries from wind companies as fishing revenues dry up. Over the past two years, Ørsted put 80 fishermen to work on the Revolution Wind project, paying out $9.5 million to captains, deckhands, and fishing boat owners, according to Gary Yerman, a Connecticut-based fisherman who founded and leads a fisher cooperative called Sea Services North America, which has an active contract to work on Revolution Wind.
“Most of us are Trump voters, and we still believe in a leader who builds. That’s why we’re asking President Trump to reverse the stop-work order issued to Revolution Wind by Interior,” Yerman told Canary Media.
The stop-work order echoes a similar one the Interior Department gave in April that froze all offshore work on New York’s Empire Wind project — a move that grounded Sea Services’ fishermen for a month, until Trump lifted the ban.
Yerman and other commercial fishermen remained quiet the last time Trump’s assault on a wind farm put them out of work. This time they’re speaking out.
“It’s madness to stop a project that already had permits,” said Jack Morris, a Massachusetts-based scalloper and manager for Sea Services who voted for Trump. “This is not something any of us planned for: the captains, the crew, the shore engineers, the people we buy food from for our trips.”
Ørsted was one of the first firms building turbines in U.S. waters to employ local fishermen, offering Sea Services a contract in 2021 to perform safety and scout tasks. The cooperative helped build Ørsted’s South Fork Wind — America’s first large-scale offshore wind farm, which went online last year.
Today, it’s common for wind developers to rely on local U.S. fishermen. Avangrid and Vineyard Offshore, codevelopers of the embattled Vineyard Wind project off the coast of Massachusetts, have paid out about $8 million over the past two years directly to local fishermen and vessel owners.
“If the infrastructure and pilings are already in, what good is stopping now?” fisherman Tony Alvernaz told Canary Media when asked about the Revolution Wind pause. A Massachusetts fisherman unaffiliated with Sea Services, Alvernaz works part-time for Vineyard Wind, assisting with the ongoing construction of its 62 turbines. Of those, 17 are already sending power to the grid.
Alvernaz is concerned about the Trump administration’s pattern of halting wind projects without warning and with little justification. Trump has already pressed pause on two of the five offshore wind farms currently under construction in America today.
In a statement Monday, a spokesperson said Revolution Wind supports more than 2,500 jobs around the U.S., including “hundreds” of local offshore jobs.
Commercial fishermen have spent a total of 1,109 days working at sea for Revolution Wind, according to Yerman. Now, sitting at the docks due to the Trump administration’s stop-work order, the 15 fishermen who planned to be at sea, working 10-day shifts throughout this month, will get paid nothing.
“Our cooperative only invoices when our boats are on active duty. Fishermen are paid for the days they work, not for standby,” Gordon Videll, CEO of Sea Services, told Canary Media. The group is calling on Trump to lift the ban so that its members can resume the job, which would have involved eight more fishermen helping with an offshore substation this fall.
The extra income from Revolution Wind has been a lifeline, particularly for scallop fishermen who, in recent years, have been severely restricted in how much they can fish.
Strict federal quotas have been put in place to allow scallop populations to rebuild after years of being overfished, according to Morris, but that has meant scallopers — who form the majority of Sea Services’ members — are off the water for about 10months a year.
Before the pause on Revolution Wind, scalloper Kevin Souza expected to make an additional $200,000 working on the project as a part-time boat captain for two years. Souza told Canary Media in February that, had he stuck to scalloping alone, he’d be “lucky” to earn $100,000 in a single year. The deckhands he hires only bring in around $30,000 per year working on scallop boats, but the offshore wind gig makes it possible for them to earn a “middle-class wage,” said Souza.
RI wind project was heading toward finish line. Now it’s about to veer into Boston federal court.
Souza has recruited both of his sons, his nephew, and other young people from longtime fishing families to work for the wind industry. They might have otherwise left the scallop industry if not for the supplemental income, he said.
As a group, America’s commercial fishermen have long been loyal to Trump. Last week’s order is shaking that confidence.
“I can’t think of one guy who isn’t a Trumper in our co-op. We’re blue-collar guys (and some gals too) who get up before dawn, work with our hands, and we trusted him to look out for us. The truth is, we love President Trump,” Yerman said.
In New Bedford, Massachusetts, home to the country’s most profitable fishing port, “TRUMP 2024” flags fly from dozens of boats docked in the harbor. A few of those crews work for the offshore wind companies, and at least one captain lowers his MAGAflag before setting out to the wind farms, according to Rodney Avila, a Sea Services fisherman.
That kind of faith makes Trump’s pause on Revolution Wind even more gutting.
“It’s like having the rug pulled out from under you. … Nobody understands why Trump did it. I don’t know what Trump’s agenda is,” said Morris.
Trump’s attacks on wind have dried up job prospects for local fishermen up and down the East Coast. His administration’s hostile actions have thrown sand in the gears of a New Jersey wind farm that planned to start construction in the next three years, Maryland’s first offshore wind farm, and another wind project off the coast of Maine.
In addition to targeting individual projects, the Trump administration has initiated policies intended to undermine the entire sector: killing offshore wind leasing, pausing permitting for wind farms, and sunsetting tax credits critical to their economic viability.
Many fishermen, including those who have pocketed thousands by working at offshore wind farms, remain wary of the companies building turbines out at sea.
These fishermen made peace with offshore wind. Then Trump came along.
“No fisherman loves new structures in the water, but we all have grandkids,” Roy Campanale, a Sea Services member based in Rhode Island, told Canary Media. “We’ve lived with the water getting warmer, watched the fish move north, and had to adapt again and again.”
Trump’s pause on Revolution Wind imposes yet another hardship.
Alvernaz voted for Trump and opposes certain wind farms that he believes pose a risk to his favorite fishing grounds. He said that he does not support Revolution Wind due to its placement on Cox Ledge, a swath of seabed identified by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration as critical habitat for Atlantic cod.
But if Trump decides to freeze Vineyard Wind, for example, Alvernaz said he “would not be happy.”
Alvernaz has worked on the water for over 40 years. Yerman’s fishing career spans 50 years. With nearly a century of combined experience in New England’s waters, neither of them are buying the Trump administration’s excuse for pausing Revolution Wind.
“Something about national defense? How can it be an issue of national defense if there are other wind farms out there with the same technology?” pondered Alvernaz. “It’s kind of odd.”
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