President Trump’s attempts to torpedo offshore wind farms suffered a second blow this week when a federal judge ruled on Thursday that construction for the $5 billion Empire Wind project off Long Island could resume.
Judge Carl J. Nichols of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia said the Interior Department’s order to stop work on Empire Wind would likely cause irreparable harm. The government last month halted construction on that project and four others along the East Coast, citing unspecified national security concerns.
Attorneys for Empire Wind had told the court that the project, which is about 60 percent complete, would face “existential risk” if it was further delayed. Equinor, the Norwegian energy giant developing the wind farm, said that if construction did not restart in the coming days it would lose more than $1 billion in contracts and that a specialized ship needed for construction would set sail for another project.
“Empire Wind has demonstrated that it will suffer irreparable harm,” said Judge Nichols, who was nominated to the bench by President Trump.
It was the second time this week that a judge has thwarted the Trump administration’s effort to stop the five projects being built by different companies along the east coast. On Monday, Judge Royce Lamberth ruled in the same court that Revolution Wind, a 65-turbine project off Rhode Island and Connecticut, could continue construction while legal proceedings move forward.
The Interior Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Equinor said in a statement that the company would “now focus on safely restarting construction activities” at Empire Wind. It said it would also continue to try to address any security concerns.
Days before Christmas, the Trump administration ordered companies to halt work on Empire Wind and Revolution Wind, as well as Sunrise Wind off the coast of New York, Vineyard Wind 1 off Massachusetts, and Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind off Virginia.
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, part of the Interior Department, said at the time that construction must stop for at least 90 days while the administration reviewed classified security issues.
The wind farms are collectively worth $25 billion and are expected to power more than 2.5 million buildings and create thousands of jobs, according to Turn Forward, an offshore wind advocacy group. In addition to the developers of the projects, several states have also sued to block the administration order and restart construction.
Mr. Trump has repeatedly said he would block new wind projects, saying without evidence “they ruin the environment, they kill the birds, they kill the whales.”
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During his first month in office Mr. Trump issued an executive order temporarily halting all leases and permits for wind energy on federal land and in U.S. waters, which he said “may lead to grave harm.” In December, a federal judge struck down that order, calling it “arbitrary and capricious.”
In April, the Trump administration broadened its focus beyond new offshore wind projects and turned its attention to wind farms that had already been approved by the Biden administration and were in various stages of construction. The Interior Department issued a stop-work order for Empire Wind, but it was reversed after weeks of negotiations with Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York, a Democrat. Then in August, the agency ordered Revolution Wind to halt construction, and in September Judge Lamberth reversed that decision.
All five wind projects had gone through years of environmental reviews before getting permits, which allowed the developers to secure financing, sign contracts to sell electricity to states and utilities, hire workers, lease equipment and begin construction. The five wind farms were pioneers in what President Joseph R. Biden Jr. had hoped would be a new era of offshore wind power in the United States.
Supporters of wind power said they believed the Trump administration’s current claims of national security concerns were a pretext for stopping an energy source that Mr. Trump dislikes.
On Wednesday, Ann Navaro, an attorney for Empire Wind, told Judge Nichols that the Trump administration had not shared any details about why it now considers offshore wind a security threat. Equinor and two other developers, Orsted and Dominion, have asked the Trump administration to give classified briefings to representatives who hold national security clearances. But to date, the Pentagon has not granted these requests, the companies said in legal filings.
Sunrise Wind and the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project both have similar cases pending against the Trump administration. The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia will hear the Virginia case on Friday.
Lisa Friedman is a Times reporter who writes about how governments are addressing climate change and the effects of those policies on communities.
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