On his first day in office, President Donald Trump made good on a promise to end the Biden administration’s offshore wind blitz with an executive order halting offshore wind leasing during a review of the industry’s impacts.
Longtime Trump foe, New York Attorney General Letitia James, announced Monday that she was leading a coalition of 17 attorneys general, mostly from solidly blue states, in suing the Trump administration for what James called an “arbitrary halt on new wind energy development across the country.”
Last month, the Trump administration went further than the moratorium, which applied to new offshore wind leases, in halting construction of Empire Wind, a wind project off the coast of Long Island. Equinor, the developer of the project, the Wall Street Journal reported, was weighing legal options, including an appeal.
It was perhaps just a matter of time before offshore wind proponents began to take legal action in hopes of preserving the Biden administration’s goal of building out 30 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2030 — roughly 3,000 turbines — along the East and West coasts. Industry opponents, however, doubt James’ legal challenge will save the industry.