A federal judge ruled Monday that work on a major offshore wind farm for Rhode Island and Connecticut can resume, handing the industry at least a temporary victory as President Donald Trump seeks to shut it down.
At the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Senior Judge Royce Lamberth said the government did not explain why it could not take action short of a complete stop to construction on Revolution Wind while it considers ways to mitigate its national security concerns. He said it also did not provide sufficient reasoning for its change in position.
Revolution Wind has received all of its federal permits and is nearly 90% complete to provide power for Rhode Island and Connecticut.
Trump says his goal is to not let any “windmills” be built. Three energy developers are challenging the administration’s freeze of their offshore wind projects.
Danish energy company Orsted, Norwegian company Equinor, and Dominion Energy Virginia each sued to ask the courts to vacate and set aside the administration’s Dec. 22 order to freeze five big projects on the East Coast over national security concerns. Orsted’s hearing was first on its Revolution Wind project.
The administration did not reveal specifics about its national security concerns, but Trump said Friday while meeting with oil industry executives about investing in Venezuela that wind farms are “losers.” He said they lose money, destroy the landscape and kill birds.
“I’ve told my people we will not approve windmills,” Trump said. “Maybe we get forced to do something because some stupid person in the Biden administration agreed to do something years ago. We will not approve any windmills in this country.”
The Biden administration sought to ramp up offshore wind as a climate change solution. Trump began reversing the country’s energy policies his first day in office with a spate of executive orders aimed at boosting oil, gas and coal.
The Trump administration paused leases for the Vineyard Wind project under construction in Massachusetts, Revolution Wind, Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind, and two projects in New York: Sunrise Wind and Empire Wind. New York’s attorney general sued the Trump administration on Friday over Empire Wind and Sunrise Wind.
Revolution Wind and Sunrise Wind are both major offshore wind projects by Orsted. Rhode Island and Connecticut filed their own request in court to try to save Revolution Wind.
At Monday’s hearing, attorney Janice Schneider, representing Revolution Wind, said the stop work order came at a critical stage of construction, with the project nearly 90% built and weeks away from beginning to deliver power to the electric grid. She said the delay is costing more than $1.4 million per day, and a specialized vessel has just enough time now to install the remaining turbines before its contract is up at the site in February.
Schneider said they take national security issues seriously, but the government has not shared more information about its concerns with their experts who have security clearances, or shared unclassified summaries.
“We do think that this court should be very skeptical of the government’s true motives here,” Schneider said.
Department of Justice attorney Peter Torstensen argued that national security is paramount and protecting against new risks identified in the classified materials outweighs any alleged irreparable harm to the developers.
Work on the Revolution Wind project was previously paused on Aug. 22 for what the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management said were national security concerns. A month later, Judge Lamberth ruled the project could resume, citing the irreparable harm to the developers and the demonstrated likelihood of success on the merits of their claim. Orsted is building it with Skyborn Renewables.
Equinor owns Empire Wind. Its limited liability company, Empire Wind LLC, said the project faces “likely termination” if construction can’t resume by this Friday because the order disrupts a tightly choreographed construction schedule dependent on vessels with very limited availability. Its hearing is Wednesday.
“I would like to think that offshore wind is, and will continue to be, part of an all-of-the-above energy solution, which our country desperately needs,” said Molly Morris, Equinor’s senior vice president overseeing Empire Wind.
Dominion Energy Virginia, which is developing Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind, was the first to sue. It’s asking a judge to block the order, calling it “arbitrary and capricious” and unconstitutional. Its hearing is Friday.
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Associated Press writer Matthew Daly contributed to this report.
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