A federal judge ruled Monday that work on a large offshore wind farm off Rhode Island and Connecticut can resume, giving the industry at least a temporary victory as President Donald Trump tries to shut it down.
In the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Chief Judge Royce Lamberth said the government had failed to explain why it could not take action before halting Revolution Wind’s construction altogether while it looked at ways to mitigate its national security concerns. He said he also did not provide sufficient reasoning for his change of position.
Revolution Wind has received all of its federal permits and is nearly 90 percent complete to provide power for Rhode Island and Connecticut.
Trump says his goal is to keep “windmills” from being built. Three energy developers are challenging the administration’s freeze on their offshore wind projects in federal courts this week.
Danish energy company Orsted, Norwegian company Equinor and Dominion Energy Virginia have each sued to ask the courts to vacate and overturn the administration’s Dec. 22 order to freeze five large East Coast projects on national security grounds. Orsted’s hearing was the first in his Revolution Wind project. Orsted said it will soon resume construction to provide affordable and reliable electricity to the Northeast.
The administration has not disclosed details of its national security concerns, but Trump said Friday during a meeting with oil industry executives about investments in Venezuela that wind farms are “losers.” He said they waste money, destroy the landscape and kill birds.
“I told my people we’re not going to approve windmills,” Trump said. “Maybe we’re being forced to do something because some stupid person in the Biden administration agreed to do something years ago. We’re not going to approve any windmills in this country.”
The Biden administration has sought to ramp up offshore wind power as a solution to climate change. Trump began reversing the country’s energy policies on his first day in office with a series of executive orders aimed at boosting oil, gas and coal. A federal judge ruled Monday that the Trump administration acted illegally when it canceled $7.6 billion in clean energy grants for projects in states that voted for Democrat Kamala Harris in the 2024 election.
The Trump administration has terminated leases for the Vineyard Wind project under construction in Massachusetts, Revolution Wind, Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind and two projects in New York: Sunrise Wind and Empire Wind. New York’s attorney general sued the Trump administration Friday over Empire Wind and Sunrise Wind.
Revolution Wind and Sunrise Wind are both Orsted’s large offshore wind projects. Rhode Island and Connecticut filed their own lawsuit to try to save Revolution Wind.
“The law takes precedent over the political whims of one man, and we will continue to fight to make sure it stays that way,” Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha said in a statement.
At Monday’s hearing, attorney Janice Schneider, who represents Revolution Wind, said the stop-work order came at a critical stage of construction, with the project nearly 90 percent built and weeks away from starting to deliver power to the grid. She said the delay was costing more than $1.4 million a day and a specialist vessel now had enough time to install the remaining turbines before its contract at the site was up in February.
Schneider said they take national security issues seriously, but the government has not shared more information about its concerns with their experts who have security clearances or shared unclassified summaries.
“We think this court should be very skeptical of the government’s true motives here,” Schneider said, citing Trump’s comments on Friday.
Justice Department attorney Peter Torstensen argued that national security is paramount and protection against new risks identified in the classified material outweighs any alleged irreparable harm to the developers.
Work on the Revolution Wind project was previously halted on August 22 over what the Office of Ocean Energy Management said were national security concerns. A month later, Judge Lamberth ruled that the project could resume, citing irreparable harm to the developers and a demonstrated likelihood of success on their claim. Orsted is building it with Skyborn Renewables.
With four offshore wind projects still stalled, Hillary Bright, executive director of the offshore wind advocacy group Turn Forward, said she hopes they will prevail in court and that the administration will begin to understand “the immense benefits these near-complete energy sources can bring to our nation’s energy and national security.”
Equinor owns Empire Wind. Its limited liability company, Empire Wind LLC, said the project faces “likely termination” if construction cannot resume by Friday, as the order disrupts a tightly choreographed construction schedule that depends on very limited vessels. His hearing is on Wednesday.
“I’d like to believe that offshore wind is and will continue to be part of a complete energy solution above that our country desperately needs,” said Molly Morris, Equinor’s senior vice president who oversees Empire Wind.
Dominion Energy Virginia, which develops Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind, was the first to sue. A judge is being asked to block the order, calling it “arbitrary and capricious” and unconstitutional. His hearing is on Friday.
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Associated Press writer Matthew Daly contributed to this report.
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