Federal law requires DoD to review proposed wind projects for potential national security concerns and work with developers to address any issues. In August 2025, DoD stopped moving projects through this process, blocking wind energy development nationwide. Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel and the coalition are asking the court to set aside DoD’s unlawful freeze and order the agency to resume the review process required by federal law.
“The Trump administration is once again standing in the way of affordable, clean, reliable energy for no valid reason. We are asking the Department of Defense to do the job Congress requires and to review these projects under a process that has been in place for years. We are suing to stop the Trump Administration from unlawfully freezing projects, driving up costs, and making it harder to build the energy infrastructure we desperately need,” said Attorney General William Tong of Connecticut.
Under federal law, land-based wind project developers must submit any proposed projects with wind turbines over 200 feet tall to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for review. The FAA then refers these projects to DoD to assess whether they could affect military operations, radar systems, flight paths, or national security. Mitigation measures often included changes to turbine placement or height, radar upgrades, or agreements to pause generation under certain circumstances.
"With no rationale of any kind, the Trump administration has weaponized a routine federal review process in order to stall clean wind energy projects,” said Nessel. “It is an obvious favor to the President’s Big Oil donors, all at the expense of cleaner air, thousands of Michigan jobs, and over half a billion dollars in private investment in our state. When the federal government tramples on the rule of law and actively harms our communities, I will not hesitate in continuing to defend Michigan residents from this administration’s unlawful policies.”
In Washington state, Attorney General Nick Brown, a Democrat, said five projects totaling more than 1,600MWs are stuck in limbo.
“The federal government claims we’re in an energy emergency and yet unlawfully stands in the way of projects seeking to harness an excellent renewable source of energy—wind,” Brown said.
Joining the lawsuit were Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island and Washington.
In a statement, the Defense Department said it was “actively evaluating” projects in a complex process “to balance renewable energy development with the protection and preservation of testing, training, and operational readiness.”
