U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) — who has been fighting President Trump’s decision to halt offshore wind energy projects across the country, including the $6.2 billion Revolution Wind project off the coast of Rhode Island which was nearly 90% complete — applauded a legal victory this week.
On Monday, a federal judge ruled that work on Revolution Wind, which has received all of its federal permits, can resume, and that the Interior Department’s suspension order was “arbitrary and capricious” in violation of federal law.
Whitehouse wrote: “Crooked Trumpsters’ bogus effort to stop offshore wind blew up in federal court today. Stopping clean energy raises customers’ costs, but the money goes to fossil fuel power plants (aka Trump’s big donors). The corrupt scam took a beating today in court.”
Note: Attorneys General from 17 Democrat-led states filed a lawsuit in May against the Trump administration’s efforts to halt offshore wind energy projects. (Note: The Judge overseeing the lawsuit recently ruled in favor of allowing the Revolution Wind project to resume construction after the administration issued a stop-work order in August.)
Crooked Trumpsters’ bogus effort to stop offshore wind blew up in federal court today. Stopping clean energy raises customers’ costs, but the money goes to fossil fuel power plants (aka Trump’s big donors). The corrupt scam took a beating today in court.
— Sheldon Whitehouse (@SenWhitehouse) January 12, 2026
Last week after Trump met with dozens of U.S. oil executives at the White House, urging them to invest $100 billion in oil production in Venezuela, Secretary of Energy Chris Wright said: “The speed at which we’ll see investment and the change in the trajectory of Venezuelan production is breathtaking.”
[NOTE: Trump reportedly got a cooler reception from the oil executives than he expected, and subsequently threatened to “keep Exxon out” of Venezuela after CEO Darren Woods called Venezuela “uninvestable” without significant changes.]
ICYMI: Watch @margbrennan‘s full interview with Secretary of Energy Chris Wright. https://t.co/b4U3MzvkEK pic.twitter.com/x8DeTHKGhB
— Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) January 11, 2026
When asked on Face the Nation on Sunday about the bid of an American hedge fund — run by Trump donor billionaire Paul Singer, who donated $5 million to Trump’s 2024 re-election campaign — to buy the Venezuelan oil company CITCO Petroleum, Wright noted “that’s certainly a very real possibility.”
Singer was one of many American “capital providers” involved in the potential deal for CITCO control. The U.S. Treasury has yet to approval the deal, which Wright predicted would be “fantastic.”