Maryland to EPA: Our offshore wind permit is fine, thank you
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Maryland’s offshore wind permit is fine, despite EPA inquiry
Maryland says it won’t reissue a permit for a contested wind project off Ocean City. The state insists its paperwork is fine. The EPA ordered Maryland to fix the error or risk “invalidation of the permit on appeal.” The project faces intense opposition in Ocean City, where leaders argue that wind turbines would blight the horizon and hurt tourism.. U.S. Wind has leased a sprawling 80,000 acres off the Maryland-Delaware coastline, where it is pursuing a multiphase development that would power hundreds of thousands of homes in the region. The project is only the project off. Maryland, a venture of the company U.s. Wind, has the necessary permits to move forward. But the EPA step might be a positive for the development, since it gets ahead of something that otherwise could become a problem in. court. The letter comes as President Donald Trump has criticized offshore wind developments around the country.
In a letter sent Thursday to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Maryland Secretary of the Environment Serena McIlwain said the state won’t make the correction requested by the feds and doesn’t have any plans to reissue its permit.
The response comes after the EPA waded into Maryland’s process earlier this month, dinging the state for a procedural detail of its air quality permit. The Maryland Department of the Environment permit directs any appeals of the permit through the state courts, but, according to EPA, such challenges should go to the Environmental Appeals Board, a division of the federal agency.
The EPA ordered Maryland regulators to fix the error and reissue its approval or risk “invalidation of the permit on appeal.“
Maryland has been issuing permits under the federal Clean Air Act for decades, McIlwain wrote in the state’s reply.
“Long-settled procedure dictates that state-issued permits are appealed under State law, not Federal law,” she said. “MDE adhered to both State and Federal law and precedent when issuing this permit and designating state law as the appropriate venue for permit appeals.”
Read More EPA says Maryland permit for Ocean City wind farm is invalid Jul 14, 2025
Whether the EPA has an ulterior motive beyond the procedural dispute isn’t clear, but the letter comes as President Donald Trump has criticized offshore wind developments around the country. Trump’s administration has halted federal offshore wind permitting, and his new domestic policy bill phases out tax credits for wind farms that don’t start construction by July 2026.
In Maryland, only the project off Ocean City, a venture of the company U.S. Wind, has the necessary permits to move forward. U.S. Wind has leased a sprawling 80,000 acres off the Maryland-Delaware coastline, where it is pursuing a multiphase development that would power hundreds of thousands of homes in the region.
The project faces intense opposition in Ocean City, where leaders argue that wind turbines would blight the horizon and hurt tourism. The beach town and surrounding jurisdictions have sued the U.S. Department of the Interior over the project’s siting about 10 miles off the coast.
In a statement, an unnamed spokesperson for the EPA’s mid-Atlantic region said the agency notified MDE of an error “with clear guidance on next steps.”
“But they don’t seem to care about complying with legal requirements,” the statement said.
Under the appeal procedure laid out by MDE, the window for citizens to file challenges to the state permit closed a week ago on July 14.
Some don’t see the EPA letter as an example of Trump’s hostility toward offshore wind.
Timothy Fox, an offshore wind analyst with the firm ClearView Energy Partners, said that in his view, the EPA’s letter correctly identified a factual error in the state permit which, if left unaddressed, could create more headaches for U.S. Wind and other offshore developers down the line.
Fox did acknowledge that the EPA intervention could be an end run aimed at blocking construction of the U.S. Wind project. But he argued that the EPA step might be a positive for the development, since it gets ahead of something that otherwise could become a problem in court.
Maryland regulators, though, don’t see much merit to the EPA claim.
Jon Mueller, director of the Environmental Law Clinic at the University of Maryland Carey School of Law, backed up the state’s argument.
A former environmental attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice, Mueller said he was was “equally confused” by the EPA’s assertion that permit appeals should go through the federal board.
Maryland issued the offshore wind permit under delegated authority of the federal Clean Air Act, and Mueller said the only time he’s seen appeals filtered through the federal board is when the EPA is the primary permitting authority — which is not the case here.
MDE once had instructions on its webpage for the Ocean City project directing appeals to the federal board. Officials have since removed that language, McIlwain noted in her letter, though Mueller said its initial inclusion might not help the state’s case.