University of Chicago Business Law Review Online Edition V. 2025

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2025 Univ. Chi. Bus. L. Rev. Online Edition 1 (2025)

handle is hein.journals/uvierschia2025 and id is 1 raw text is:

Shifting Winds: The Offshore Wind Industry in the Context of
Administrative Volatility
Lindsey Shrodek

I. INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................1

II. DISCUSSION ...........................................................................................................3

A. The Political Environment of Offshore Wind..................................................3
B. Regulatory Whiplash.........................................................................................4
1. Administrative Actions..................................................................................4
2. Tariffs..............................................................................................................7
III. LEGAL REMEDIES..................................................................................................8

A. Arbitrary and Capricious Review.....................................................................8
1. Agency Review and Presidential Wind Directive ........................................9
2. Major Questions Doctrine: A Tarriff Application ......................................12
IV. CONCLUSION........................................................................................................14

I. INTRODUCTION

Offshore Wind Energy is an emerging industry in the United States and is
currently poised for exponential growth.1 The Obama Administration
undertook extensive efforts to accelerate wind and solar projects, such as
approving 60 large-scale geothermal energy projects that could power five
million homes,2 developing a competitive renewable energy leasing
program on public lands, creating the Smart from the Start program for
Offshore Wind leasing, and holding six of the first lease sales for Offshore
Wind in the Atlantic Ocean.3 When Biden took office, his administration
continued supporting the growth of the renewable energy industry. The
Biden Administration set a goal to decarbonize the energy grid by 2025, but
to reach this goal, the United States needed to double or triple the level of

1Offshore Wind Energy, OFFICE OF ENERGY EFFICIENCY & RENEWABLE ENERGY, 1,
https://perma.cc/BG85-LAA9.
2 Sally Jewell, Toward a Bright Future: The Interior Department's Record of Progress, THE WHITE
HOUSE OF PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA, https://perma.cc/9N8S-VXRW.
3 U.S. Department of the Interior, Interior Department to Auction 122,000 Acres Offshore North
Carolina for Wind Energy Development, DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, 2, (2025),
https://perma.cc/GL53-28T9.

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