News Breakbulk & Project Cargo
The Defense Department has delayed approval of 165 onshore wind projects over national security concerns. Shutterstock. com is for onshore wind, which accounted for more than 90 % of global wind turbine orders in 2025 despite an 18 % yearover-year decline, according to S & P Global Energy.
John Welch, senior director of heavy-haul operations for Lone Star Transportation, noted that wind energy project supply chains depend on a predictable pipeline of cargo due to the complexity of the moves.
“ Transporting the major wind components requires significant advance planning, specialized equipment, routing, permitting, escorts, crews, and considerable coordination. And that is just the transportation portion,” Welch told the Journal of Commerce.
“ Delays or uncertainty in project approvals can ripple through the logistics and supply chain, making it more difficult for transportation providers and their customers to plan efficiently and responsibly,” he added.
Among the stalled projects are wind farms that were awaiting final signoff, others in mid-negotiation, and projects that typically do not require federal oversight, the Financial Times reported, citing the American Clean Power Association( ACP) and sources close to the matter.
ACP CEO Jason Grumet told the Journal of Commerce that efforts to delay onshore projects contradict calls from senior federal officials for permitting reform while“ abusing the current permitting system.”
“ The core idea of permitting reform is that America wins when we can modernize all critical infrastructure,” Grumet said.“ It’ s incoherent to pursue that goal while actively blockading domestic energy production that will help meet our growing energy needs and keeping energy affordable for American families.”
Energy recalibration
The crackdown on onshore windfarms marks the latest push by the Trump administration to dismantle the US wind industry. On March 23, French energy giant TotalEnergies signed off on a deal to accept $ 1 billion from the US government to cancel its two offshore wind projects— Carolina Long Bay and New York Bight— and instead pivot to developing fossil fuel facilities.
And in February, the Trump administration began taking steps to reverse a sweep of court victories allowing construction to resume on five offshore wind projects the administration has tried to stop.
The slowdown of US wind farm development over the past couple of years has forced heavy-haul transport specialist Art Espaillat to suspend operations of his onshore wind logistics consultancy, as many of his competitors lowered their rates when project developers pulled back.
“ It’ s incoherent to pursue that goal while actively blockading domestic energy production.”
“ It just created a race to the bottom for a lot of companies like mine,” Espaillat told the Journal of Commerce.
Espaillat said many of the US wind projects he has worked on over the past six years had already secured agreements with utilities to supply power to the grid, only to reach a standstill because of federal permitting delays.
“ They’ re setting up roadblocks that not a lot of other industries are getting,” he said.
With fewer turbines in need of transport, comparably sized data center components have been eating up the available heavy-haul capacity, Espaillat said. But if those stalled wind projects were to pick back up again in another two years, the industry could face a scenario similar to the challenges that played out in 2020 when the global wind industry’ s rapid expansion created supply chain bottlenecks for turbines and components.
“ Developers lost a lot of money because there weren’ t enough trucks, not enough ships, and it was too much too fast,” Espaillat said.“ Executing in a scenario like that is very expensive and chaotic.”
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20 Journal of Commerce | June 2026 www. joc. com