This spring, lawmakers and community members toured the port, where Humboldt Bay is building a heavy-lift marine terminal to service the offshore wind industry. Photo: Alex Cornell du Houx, EOPA
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Dec 12, 2025
By Suzanne Potter
Groups that promote offshore wind power are hopeful that a big win in court will convince the federal government to consider permitting new projects.
This week, a federal judge struck down President Donald Trump’s day-one executive order that halted all offshore wind approvals and argued that the Biden administration unfairly favored renewable energy over oil and gas.
“Now each individual project is still going to have to continue the route it’s on,” said Benjamin Collings, offshore wind advisor for the nonprofit Elected Officials to Protect America. “For example, projects like in the Port of Humboldt, they can continue without being permanently stopped, which the White House was trying to do.”
California has five offshore wind projects in development: two off of Humboldt Bay and three off the coast of Morro Bay. Companies are doing environmental studies as they prepare to apply for state permits.
Collings described Trump’s campaign against offshore wind as damaging on many levels.
“For states like California to reach their goals on reducing carbon output, offshore wind projects are a big part of that equation,” he said, “and in the long term you’re talking about jobs, and billions of dollars of investment at stake.”
Stephen Kullman is a commissioner and board president of the Humboldt Bay Harbor Recreation and Conservation District, which is building a marine terminal at the port to receive offshore wind power in the future. Even though the project lost $435 million in federal funding, he said it is important to move forward.
“It’ll really help rural communities who are in need of economic development,” Kullman said. “It will help remediate legacy industrial toxins along the bay. It will help redevelop industrial lands.”
It is unclear whether the administration will appeal the federal court ruling invalidating Trump’s moratorium on offshore wind projects. More than 250 elected officials from across California have signed a letter from Elected Officials to Protect America in support of offshore wind energy.