On Monday, a coalition of state attorneys general filed a lawsuit challenging President Donald Trump’s decision to halt wind energy development.
The group—comprising attorneys general from 17 states and Washington, D.C.—is contesting an executive order Trump issued on his first day in office. The order placed a freeze on all approvals, permits, and federal loans for wind energy projects, both on land and at sea. The coalition argues that the president does not have the legal authority to unilaterally suspend the permitting process and warns that the move undermines a crucial energy source vital to their economies, energy strategies, public health, and climate objectives.
They are urging a federal court to rule the executive order illegal and to block federal agencies from enforcing it.
“This unjustified and harmful order puts thousands of well-paying jobs and billions in clean energy investments at risk,” said New York Attorney General Letitia James, who is spearheading the lawsuit. “It’s also stalling our much-needed shift away from fossil fuels, which continue to damage our health and our environment.”
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White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers said Democratic attorneys general are “using lawfare to stop the president’s popular energy agenda,” instead of working with him to unleash American energy and lower prices for families.
“The American people voted for the president to restore America’s energy dominance, and Americans in blue states should not have to pay the price of the Democrats’ radical climate agenda,” Rogers said in a statement to The Associated Press.
Trump vowed during the campaign to end the offshore wind industry if he returned to the White House. His order said there were “alleged legal deficiencies underlying the federal government’s leasing and permitting” of wind projects, and it directed the Interior secretary to review wind leasing and permitting practices for federal waters and lands.
The lawsuit was filed in federal court in Massachusetts.
Trump’s order targeted a priority of Biden’s climate plan
The Biden administration saw offshore wind as a climate change solution, setting national goals, holding lease sales and approving nearly a dozen commercial-scale projects. Trump is reversing those energy policies. He’s boosting fossil fuels such as oil, natural gas and coal, which cause climate change, arguing it’s necessary for the U.S. to have the lowest-cost energy and electricity in the world.
The Trump administration took a more aggressive step against wind in April when it ordered the Norwegian company Equinor to halt construction on Empire Wind, a fully permitted project located southeast of Long Island, New York, that is about 30% complete. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said it appeared the Biden administration rushed the approval.
Equinor went through a seven-year permitting process before starting to build Empire Wind last year to provide power to 500,000 New York homes. Equinor is considering legal options, which would be separate from the complaint filed Monday. The Norwegian government owns a majority stake in Equinor.
Wind provides about 10% of the electricity generated in the United States, making it the nation’s largest source of renewable energy. The attorneys general argue that Trump’s order is at odds with years of bipartisan support for wind energy and contradicts his own declaration of a “national energy emergency,” which called for expanding domestic energy production.
States have already invested large sums to develop wind energy
The coalition includes Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington and Washington, D.C. They say they’ve invested hundreds of millions of dollars collectively to develop wind energy and even more on upgrading transmission lines to bring wind energy to the electrical grid.