New York sues Trump administration over pause on two offshore wind projects

By Nichola Groom and Nate Raymond

Jan 9 (Reuters) – New York’s attorney general sued the Trump administration on Friday for suspending construction on two major offshore wind projects that the state says it needs to power 1 million homes and reduce its reliance on fossil fuels.

In a pair of lawsuits, New York Attorney General Letitia James is asking a federal court in Washington to block U.S. President Donald Trump’s December 22 freeze on federal offshore leases held by Norway’s Equinor and Denmark’s Orsted.

An Interior Department spokesperson said the agency would not comment on pending litigation. Interior has said it paused the projects due to complaints by the Pentagon that wind turbines cause radar interference that can make it hard to identify security threats.   

“New Yorkers deserve clean, reliable energy, good-paying jobs, and a government that follows the law,” James said in a statement. “These projects were carefully reviewed and already under construction when the federal government pulled the plug without explanation. This reckless decision puts workers, families, and our climate goals at risk, and my office is taking action to stop it.”

James, an elected Democrat, is one of the Republican president’s top political antagonists.

Equinor and Orsted have faced repeated setbacks to their offshore wind developments under Trump, who has said wind turbines are ugly, costly and inefficient.

Both offshore wind developers have filed their own lawsuits against Interior on behalf of their multibillion-dollar New York projects, Empire Wind and Sunrise Wind.

Equinor’s Empire Wind has warned in court papers that it faces likely termination if it cannot restart construction by January 16 and has asked a federal judge in Washington for a preliminary injunction. A hearing on that request will take place next week.

Orsted has sued on behalf of Sunrise Wind and another project, Revolution Wind, which is being built off the coast of Rhode Island. The company in September succeeded in getting a federal judge to block a separate Trump administration stop-work order on Revolution Wind.

The Interior Department’s pause on offshore wind leases also affects Avangrid’s Vineyard Wind project off the coast of Massachusetts and Dominion Energy’s Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind facility.

(Reporting by Nichola Groom in Los Angeles and Nate Raymond in Boston; Additional reporting by Jack Queen; Editing by Matthew Lewis)