Barack Obama put Denise Casper on the federal bench in 2010.
She donated $3,550 to Democrat candidates before that appointment – including $2,300 directly to Obama's presidential campaign.
Now she just blocked the Trump administration's effort to slow-walk permits for wind and solar projects – and she did it 24 hours after Trump invoked the Defense Production Act to accelerate American energy production.
The Judge Who Donated Her Way to the Bench
Chief U.S. District Judge Casper issued a preliminary injunction Tuesday halting enforcement of Department of the Interior policies that required wind and solar permitting decisions to receive sign-off from three senior political appointees – including Interior Secretary Doug Burgum himself.
The Trump administration put that requirement in place deliberately.
The Interior memorandum stated its purpose plainly: eliminating "preferences" for "expensive and unreliable energy sources like wind and solar."
That's not bureaucratic boilerplate.
That's a policy rooted in the real-world understanding that wind and solar can't keep the lights on when the sun doesn't shine and the wind doesn't blow.
Casper didn't care.
https://twitter.com/TheCalvinCooli1/status/2046633250764783806?s=20
She sided with nine renewable energy trade groups and advocacy organizations – including RENEW Northeast and the Alliance for Clean Energy New York – who argued the review process created too much friction.
Her ruling also blocked the administration's stricter interpretation of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act for offshore wind projects.
That's a two-for-one gut punch to American energy realism.
Wind and Solar Just Got a Federal Lifeline on Your Dime
On Monday, Trump signed memorandums invoking the Defense Production Act, citing national defense as the justification for expanding domestic energy output.
On Tuesday, Casper blocked his Interior Department from exercising the most basic form of executive oversight over the permitting pipeline for wind and solar.
This is not coincidence. This is the pattern.
Obama-appointed judges have spent two Trump terms using the Administrative Procedure Act as a legal cudgel against conservative executive action.
The APA challenge here is straightforward: plaintiffs argued the administration didn't provide enough written justification for the added review structure. Casper agreed.
Never mind that the President of the United States gets to set energy policy priorities. Never mind that the Defense Production Act invocation the day before was itself a statement of national security rationale.
Casper's position, essentially, is that Trump's Interior Department needed to write a longer memo before it could make Democrats' favorite energy projects slightly harder to approve.
In practical terms, projects that were stalled under the Burgum review requirement can now move forward.
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Offshore wind leases that faced stricter scrutiny under the new OCS interpretation get a reprieve.
Meanwhile, Trump signed the Defense Production Act to boost oil, coal, and natural gas.
The administration's vision is coherent: reliable energy that doesn't depend on weather conditions.
One Obama-appointed judge in Boston just put herself between that vision and reality.
She also once wrote a Harvard Law review arguing that racism remains a "pervasive phenomenon" in America – and praised a book for proving that professional success doesn't protect Black Americans from racial discrimination.
That's not a neutral legal mind.
https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2044049649397325863?s=20
That's an ideological worldview that ends up on the federal bench for life.
The voting records are equally instructive.
Casper participated in Democrat primaries in 2014, 2020, 2022, and 2024.
She is "unaffiliated" in Massachusetts the same way most of Boston is "unaffiliated" – it means nothing.
Federal judges are supposed to be above partisan politics.
Casper's checkbook, her Harvard Law reviews, and her primary voting history tell a different story.
The Green New Scam has a protector in Boston.
Her name is Denise Casper, and Barack Obama put her exactly where she needed to be.
Sources:
- Jasmyn Jordan, "Obama-Appointed Judge Denise J. Casper Blocks Trump Administration's Efforts to Stop 'Green New Scam,'" Breitbart, April 22, 2026.
- Reuters, "Federal Judge Blocks Trump Administration Wind and Solar Permitting Policies," April 22, 2026.
- U.S. District Court, District of Massachusetts, RENEW Northeast et al. v. Department of the Interior, Preliminary Injunction Order, April 22, 2026.