Renewable Energy
States Sue Trump Admin Over Wind Energy Permitting Pause
Federal officials ordered work to stop on Equinor's Empire Wind project in New York for additional review after President Donald Trump ordered a pause in wind energy project permitting.
Photo courtesy Equinor
A group of attorneys general from 17 states and the District of Columbia filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration May 5 challenging a memo from President Donald Trump that has halted permitting approvals for offshore and onshore wind energy projects.
Trump issued the order on Jan. 20, the first day of his second term in office. It directs secretaries of the departments of Treasury, Interior, Agriculture and Energy, plus the attorney general and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency administrator, to temporarily stop offshore wind leases in federal waters and project approvals.
In the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Boston, the attorneys general wrote that the directive harms states’ efforts to secure sources of affordable and reliable power to meet growing demand for electricity. It also harms money that states have invested in wind energy infrastructure and workforce training, and efforts to protect public health against air pollution, they wrote.
“Massachusetts has invested hundreds of millions of dollars into offshore wind to ensure our residents have access to well-paying green jobs and reliable, affordable energy that helps meet our clean energy and climate goals,” Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell said in a statement. “The president’s attempts to stop homegrown wind energy development directly contradict his claims that there is a growing need for reliable domestic energy.”
The attorneys general, all from Democratic-led states, argue in the complaint that agencies’ implementation of Trump’s order violates various laws that set approval proceedings, including the Clean Air Act, Endangered Species Act and Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, and that administration officials. including the president, are overreaching their power.
Federal officials have not yet responded to the suit, but a White House spokesperson told reporters that the attorneys general are “using lawfare to stop the president’s popular energy agenda.”
An Interior Dept. representative said in a statement that its policy "is to not comment on litigation," but that the agency “reaffirms its unwavering commitment to conserving and managing the nation's natural and cultural resources ... while prioritizing fiscal responsibility for the American people."
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States participating in the suit include Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island and Washington state, plus the District of Columbia.
“The wind directive has stopped most wind energy development in its tracks, despite the fact that wind energy is a homegrown source of reliable, affordable energy that supports hundreds of thousands of jobs, creates billions of dollars in economic activity and tax payments, and supplies more than 10% of the country’s electricity,” the attorneys general wrote in the complaint.
The suit comes after Interior Secretary Doug Burgum announced last month that officials had ordered a halt of Norwegian developer Equinor’s $5-billion Empire Wind project off the coast of New York for additional "review." Company leaders said they would comply with the order, but also indicated that they were considering legal action to challenge the halt.
“This administration is devastating one of our nation’s fastest-growing sources of clean, reliable and affordable energy,” New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement about the states’ lawsuit.
