President Trump’s efforts to stifle the offshore wind power industry suffered a third legal setback this week, after a federal judge ruled on Friday that an $11.2 billion wind farm off the coast of Virginia can resume construction.
The Interior Department last month ordered all work to stop on the Virginia wind farm and four other offshore wind projects under construction, citing unspecified national security concerns. The developers of the projects have all sued in various courts, arguing that the government failed to justify its actions and that any delays would cause irreparable harm to the companies.
So far, judges have sided with the companies. On Friday, Judge Jamar K. Walker of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia issued a preliminary injunction that would allow the Virginia wind farm to continue construction while its developer, Dominion Energy, pursues its legal case against the stop-work order.
Separate federal judges this week have already issued preliminary injunctions that allowed two other projects — Revolution Wind, off Rhode Island and Empire Wind, off New York — to restart construction.
The Virginia Coastal Offshore Wind project would be the nation’s largest wind farm if built. Dominion has said the project is more than 60 percent complete and would ultimately consist of 176 turbines with 2.6 gigawatts of electrical capacity, approximately enough to power 660,000 homes.
Dominion has already spent roughly $8.9 billion on the project and said in court filings that the Trump administration’s stop-work order was costing it $5 million per day.
In response to the judge’s ruling, Dominion said in a statement that it would focus on safely restarting work at the Virginia offshore wind project and expected to start delivering electricity to the grid in the coming weeks. Barring further delays, the project was scheduled to be finished by the end of this year.
“While our legal challenge proceeds, we will continue seeking a durable resolution of this matter through cooperation with the federal government,” Dominion said in a statement.
The Trump administration has said that the national security concerns underpinning its latest stop-work order are classified, although, as part of the case, government lawyers shared information under seal with the judge.
That information did not persuade Judge Walker that the national security risk was imminent enough to justify stopping construction on the Virginia project altogether. Judge Walker’s decision echoed similar rulings by the two other federal judges this week who were skeptical of the Trump administration’s national security rationale.
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In a statement responding to the ruling, Taylor Rogers, a White House spokeswoman, said: “President Trump has been clear: wind energy is the scam of the century. For years, Americans have been forced to pay billions more for the least reliable source of energy. The Trump administration has paused the construction of all large-scale offshore wind projects because our number one priority is to put America First and protect the national security of the American people.”
“The administration looks forward to ultimate victory on the issue,” Ms. Rogers added.
The Trump administration could still appeal this week’s court decisions but has not yet said whether it will do so.
In statements to the media, the Interior Department has previously cited concerns that large spinning wind turbine blades could interfere with radar systems.
But in court filings challenging the stop-work order, lawyers from Dominion said that the Virginia wind project had gone through years of extensive review with the Pentagon to address concerns over radar interference. Dominion has spent $250,000 to upgrade military radar in the area.
Dominion had also asked the Trump administration to give classified briefings on its concerns to company representatives who hold security clearances. To date, however, the Pentagon has not granted these requests, the company said in court filings.
Mr. Trump has been a strident critic of wind power since he failed in 2011 to stop an offshore wind farm that was visible from of one of his golf courses in Scotland. He has called wind farms ugly and inefficient, and in the fall he took the extraordinary step of instructing a half-dozen agencies to draft plans to thwart the country’s offshore wind industry.
“My goal is to not let any windmill be built,” Mr. Trump said on Friday at a meeting of oil executives at the White House.
Brad Plumer is a Times reporter who covers technology and policy efforts to address global warming.
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