States Say Trump Order Halting Wind Projects Defies Explanation

The Trump administration’s order to halt work on a nearly completed wind farm off the coast of Rhode Island threatens grid reliability and jobs and defies explanation, business and government leaders from New England said on Monday.

Trump Plans to Cancel Approval of Maryland Wind Project REUTERS: The Trump administration intends to withdraw federal approval for US Wind’s wind farm off the coast of Maryland, according to a document filed in federal court on Friday. In the filing, in U.S. District Court in Delaware, attorneys from the Department of Justice asked the court to stay a lawsuit by a Delaware homeowner challenging the Interior Department’s approval last year of the Maryland Offshore Wind Project. The action is the latest in a series of moves the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump has made to stymie development of offshore wind and other clean energy facilities. The Biden administration approved the US Wind project in September of last year. It was expected to one day produce enough power for 718,000 homes. The Trump administration, by September 12, will move in a separate lawsuit brought by officials in Ocean City, Maryland to vacate approval of the facility’s construction and operations plan, the filing said. That lawsuit is pending in federal court in Maryland. “If Interior’s motion is granted, the agency action that Plaintiff challenges will be vacated, and thus his claims will be entirely moot,” the filing said. On his first day in office in January, Trump suspended new offshore wind leasing pending an environmental and economic review of projects. He has repeatedly criticized wind energy as ugly, unreliable and expensive. Advocates of wind energy say it is an important element in efforts to reduce carbon emissions blamed for global warming. Most recently, the Interior Department last week issued a stop-work order on a nearly completed project off the coast of Rhode Island, citing national security concerns. An Interior Department spokesperson had no comment on the court filing. US Wind said its project was on strong legal footing. “Our construction and operations plan approval is the subject of ongoing litigation, but we remain confident that the federal permits we secured after a multi-year and rigorous public review process are legally sound,” said Nancy Sopko, vice president of external affairs for US Wind. (Reporting by Nichola Groom and Nate Raymond; Editing by Chris Reese and Stephen Coates

State leaders in Connecticut and Rhode Island demanded details from the administration about why it issued a stop-work order to the Revolution Wind project late on Friday. In its letter to project developer Orsted, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management cited unspecified national security concerns.

“They say there are national security interests here. Come clean, reveal them,” Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut, said at a press conference with fellow state leaders on Monday. “And if you can’t do it in public, give us a briefing in private. We have top secret clearance.”

A spokesperson for the Interior Department, which oversees BOEM, declined to comment on the stop-work order.

ISO New England, which operates the grid in six states, and North America’s Building Trades Unions, an alliance of building and construction unions, also raised concerns.

“The ISO is expecting this project to come online and it is included in our analyzes of near-term and future grid reliability,” the grid operator for 15 million people said. “Delaying the project will increase risks to reliability.”

NABTU said the order affected the jobs of 1,000 members.

“A ‘stop-work order’ is the fancy bureaucratic term, but it means one thing: throwing skilled American workers off the job after they’ve spent a decade training, building, and delivering,” NABTU President Sean McGarvey said in a statement.

Revolution Wind was scheduled to be completed next year and produce enough electricity to power 350,000 homes in Rhode Island and Connecticut. Shares of Orsted, which is based in Denmark, sank to record lows on Monday.

U.S. President Donald Trump, a Republican, has repeatedly criticized wind energy as ugly, unreliable and expensive. His administration has taken steps to rein in wind development, including launching a national security investigation into imports of wind turbines and components.

Green Oceans, a Rhode Island group that opposes the project due to concerns about its impact on coastal communities and ocean habitats, said it was pleased with the order.

“This decisive action demonstrates that the federal government finally recognizes the seriously flawed permitting process that allowed this project and others to move forward,” the group said.

(Reporting by Nichola Groom in Los Angeles and Laila Kearney in New York; Editing by Cynthia Osterman and Nia Williams)