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This analysis and news roundup come from the Canary Media Weekly newsletter. Sign up to get it every Friday.
President Donald Trump’s sweeping freeze on offshore wind construction is starting to hurt his own party’s energy ambitions.
Just days before Christmas, the Trump administration halted work on all five large-scale offshore wind farms under construction in the U.S, citing unspecified national security concerns. The order may have come as a shock to the project developers, who received letters from the Interior Department only after Fox News publicly reported on the move, as Canary Media’s Clare Fieseler reported at the time.
All but one of the targeted developers have since sued the Trump administration. Danish developer Ørsted filed two separate suits over pauses to its nearly complete Revolution Wind — which the Interior already halted for a month last fall — and to Sunrise Wind. In another lawsuit, Equinor warned that the freeze would result in the “likely termination” of its Empire Wind project off New York, which also suffered a monthlong stop-work order last spring. And Dominion Energy is asking a judge to let construction resume on the utility’s Virginia project, once considered safe because it had the backing of the state’s outgoing Republican governor.
The halts are also sparking backlash on Capitol Hill that could derail some of the White House’s other energy plans. In the weeks leading up to the holidays, Congress had taken up what seemed like the millionth round of negotiations to reform energy-project permitting. Reforms are essential to Republicans’ goal of speeding fossil-fuel construction, and this time around, they’d actually made progress with the House’s passage of the SPEED Act, which had support from a handful of Democrats.
That bill requires 60 votes to clear the Senate, but with Republicans holding just 53 seats, it would need significant Democratic support. That won’t happen while the Interior’s stop-work order remains in place, two high-ranking Senate Democrats say.
“The illegal attacks on fully permitted renewable energy projects must be reversed if there is to be any chance that permitting talks resume,” Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) said in a late December statement calling out the offshore wind halts. “There is no path to permitting reform if this administration refuses to follow the law.”
Congress reconvened this week, but Whitehouse affirmed that permitting talks won’t go anywhere until offshore wind construction is free to proceed.
Venezuela is dominating the energy discussion
While the Trump administration used allegations of narcoterrorism to justify its invasion of Venezuela and seizure of leader Nicolás Maduro, pretty much every conversation since has revolved around the country’s oil resources. In his first news conference after Maduro’s capture, President Donald Trump said the U.S. would “run” Venezuela and control its oil production, and he has been pressuring American oil companies to reinvest in the South American nation.
But it’s not just oil that the White House is eyeing. An administration official told Latitude Media that Trump and the private sector may also target Venezuela’s critical mineral resources, though experts warn that little reliable data exists on those deposits and that the country’s mining sectors are in disarray.
More delayed coal-plant retirements
The U.S Department of Energy issued a wave of orders in the waning days of 2025 to keep coal power plants running past their retirement dates. The first targeted a plant in Centralia, Washington, which its owner had been planning to close since 2011. Next up came orders to keep two Indiana coal plants open until at least late March. And just before year’s end came another, this one targeting Unit 1 at Colorado’s Craig power plant.
Both the Craig facility and one of the units in Indiana have been out of commission due to mechanical failures since earlier in 2025, meaning their owners will now have to shoulder potentially huge repair costs to comply with the federal mandate, Canary Media’s Jeff St. John reports.
And the U.S. EPA may soon throw another lifeline to coal power. The agency plans to let 11 plants dump toxic coal ash into unlined pits years after current federal rules allow, Canary Media’s Kari Lydersen reports. Without the extension, those plants would likely shutter.
A just transition? As the European Union shifts off coal, advocates and leaders are working to ensure Poland’s powerhouse mining region isn’t left behind. (Canary Media)
It’s electrifying: The rising cost of natural gas and growing popularity of heat pumps and induction cooking indicate a bright future ahead for building electrification in the U.S. (Canary Media)
State of the emergency: In the year since Trump declared a national emergency on energy, experts say an actual electricity-supply crisis has emerged, and the White House is discouraging renewable energy development that could help solve it. (Canary Media)
A new EV champion: Tesla’s sales fell year-over-year in 2025, finishing at 1.64 million deliveries, putting the company’s sales totals behind emerging Chinese company BYD, which sold 2.26 million EVs. (AFP)
Back from the dead: Nearly obsolete fossil-fuel-fired peaker plants are being forced back into service thanks to rising electricity demand from AI data centers. (Reuters)
Solar’s bigger in Texas: Data shows that solar arrays provided more power to Texas’ standalone grid in 2025 than did coal-fired power plants, marking the first time that has happened. (Houston Chronicle)
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