(The Center Square) — A group of Democratic-led Northeast states are suing the Trump administration over its pause on offshore wind projects, alleging the move is “unlawful” and will cost jobs and threaten the environment.
The federal lawsuit, filed by New York Attorney General Letitia James and 16 other attorneys general Monday, claims that President Donald Trump doesn’t have the authority to enforce a Jan. 20 executive order that indefinitely halted federal wind-energy approvals and called on a U.S. District Court judge in Boston to block the order and restore permits for the projects.
“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 ten percent of the country’s electricity,” the attorneys general wrote in the 101-page complaint.
In April, the Energy Department halted work on New York’s Empire Wind Project “until further review,” citing new information suggesting the Biden administration “rushed through its approval without sufficient analysis.”
The federal agency also pulled the plug on New Jersey’s offshore wind projects and clawed back a $12.6 million federal grant for Maine to build the nation’s first offshore wind turbine research project.
“This administration is devastating one of our nation’s fastest-growing sources of clean, reliable, and affordable energy,” James said in a statement. “This arbitrary and unnecessary directive threatens the loss of thousands of good-paying jobs and billions in investments, and it is delaying our transition away from the fossil fuels that harm our health and our planet.”
New York is joined in the lawsuit by the attorneys generals of Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington and the District of Columbia. Collectively, the states said in the lawsuit they have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in wind energy-related projects.
Wind provides about 10% of the electricity generated in the U.S., making it the nation’s largest source of renewable energy, according to federal data.
Former President Joe Biden, a Democrat, aggressively pursued plans by the federal government to add at least 35 gigawatts of offshore wind in the U.S. by 2030, beginning with Vineyard Wind off the southern coast of Massachusetts. He argued that the plan will boost the nation’s clean energy industry and create jobs.
However, Trump argues that the floating wind turbines “cause tremendous problems with the fish and the whales” while driving up the cost of energy. He has pushed for more reliance on natural gas and coal to meet the nation’s energy needs, declared a national emergency, and rolled back regulations.
The lawsuit is the latest by James, a longtime Trump nemesis, who has sparred with Trump since the start of his second presidential term. James has filed or signed onto at least a dozen lawsuits challenging the president’s early actions on immigration crackdowns and federal cuts in health care spending.
