A national fishing group and a conservative think tank are pushing for the U.S. Supreme Court to take up a pair of appeals centered around the permitting process for Vineyard Wind. 

The Responsible Offshore Development Alliance (RODA) and the Texas Public Policy Foundation have both filed petitions with the country’s highest court, arguing that the Department of Interior did not follow the law when approving the project. 

The petitions are the latest of many legal challenges that have been aimed at the planned 62-turbine offshore wind energy farm to the Vineyard’s south. So far, Vineyard Wind has beaten back several previous lawsuits and continues to be built about 14 miles off the Island. 

Past rulings have upheld the federal government’s approvals for Vineyard Wind, and the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this year declined to hear a challenge by a group of Nantucket residents.

RODA’s petition hinges on the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, which allows the secretary of the interior to grant leases in areas offshore. 

RODA claimed that the law requires the secretary to ensure the protection of the sea for a fishery. But in the Vineyard Wind approval, the secretary reinterpreted the requirement as only a single consideration weighed against the emerging offshore wind energy industry, according to the lawsuit. 

“The commercial fishing industry has fed our country, and the world, since before the United States became a nation,” RODA said in a statement. “Now their livelihoods, along with their safety, shoreside-based family businesses, and our nation’s sustainable domestic seafood production hangs in the balance.”

The Texas Public Policy Foundation, which is representing several commercial fishing entities in the northeast, argued that Vineyard Wind will result in “momentous adverse impacts on marine navigation, public safety, the environment and national security.”

“It is part of an ambitious initiative of the former Biden Administration to diminish demand for fossil fuels throughout the nation,” the foundation wrote in a statement. “The Vineyard Wind 1 project was rushed through and approved despite environmental, safety, and national security risks.”

A spokesperson for Vineyard Wind, which has its operations headquarters on Beach Road, declined to comment on the case.  

Vineyard Wind is still waiting to complete building its project after a blade snapped on one of the turbines in July. The project was the first offshore commercial-scale farm to be approved in the U.S. 

Chances of having a case heard at the Supreme Court are slim. The Supreme Court gets about 7,000 requests to review cases every year, but only takes up about 100 complaints.

Offshore wind energy has been a target since the Trump administration took officer earlier this year. President Donald Trump has ordered all permitting of projects to be halted until a comprehensive review is undertaken by the secretary of the Interior.