April 11, 2025 — The federal government has asked a U.S. District Court Judge to partially dismiss a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), citing a similar offshore wind lawsuit in Rhode Island.
Ocean City and numerous co-plaintiffs first filed their lawsuit against the federal government in October of 2024 over the approval of offshore wind company U.S. Wind’s plans for wind turbines off of Delmarva’s coast. The lawsuit claimed U.S. Wind’s plans and the government’s approval, issued under the Biden Administration, were not in compliance with numerous federal agency rules and regulations.
On January 17, 2025, the federal government filed a motion of partial dismissal in the United States District Court for the District of Maryland, according to court records. Specifically, the government argued that two of Ocean City’s claims against them were null. First was the allegation that BOEM violated the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA) and the second that BOEM violated the Coastal Zone Management Act (CZMA) in its approval of U.S. Wind’s proposed project.
Granting approval for a third-party project (like U.S. Wind’s) that could hypothetically violate those acts in the future did not constitute actual or present violations by the government, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) argued.