Empire Offshore Wind LLC has filed a lawsuit challenging the U.S. Department of the Interior’s order directing a suspension of its Empire Wind project as well as four others along the East Coast.
Empire plans to seek a preliminary injunction and allow construction to continue while the litigation proceeds, according to the lawsuit filed on Friday, Jan. 2, in federal court.
The White House said in December that it would halt leases for five wind farms under construction off the East Coast, including two off the coast of Long Island, citing national security concerns.
“While Empire continues to work closely with Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and the other relevant authorities to find a prompt resolution to the matter, the order is in Equinor’s view unlawful and threatens the progress of ongoing work with significant implications for the project,” Equinor, Empire’s parent company, said in a statement.
According to Equinor, the Empire Wind project is being developed under contract with the state Energy Research and Development Authority to deliver a critical new, near-term source of electricity, bolstering grid reliability at a time of rapidly growing demand. Once completed, the project is expected to provide enough power to electrify approximately 500,000 homes in New York. The project is roughly 60% complete.
Equinor said it has invested over $4 billion into the project and that the project’s construction phase alone has put nearly 4,000 people to work.
The four other projects affected by the federal halt include the Sunrise Wind projects off the coast of New York, as well as the Vineyard Wind 1 off Massachusetts, Revolution Wind off Rhode Island and Connecticut and Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind, according to the U.S. Department of the Interior.
Interior said the pause will give government agencies time to work with leaseholders and state partners to assess the possibility of mitigating the national security risks posed by these projects.
Erik Milito, the president of the National Ocean Industries Association, said the group is calling for an end to the pause, saying that offshore wind improves national security by shifting economic, infrastructure, and geopolitical advantages to the United States.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, along with Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey, Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont and Rhode Island Gov. Daniel McKee, had said in a joint statement that coastal states are working hard to build more energy to meet rising demand and lower costs and that the projects have created thousands of jobs and injected billions in economic activity into communities.
The pause came after a federal judge blocked the Trump administration’s bid to stop construction of offshore wind farms earlier in December.
The Dec. 8 ruling was the culmination of a lawsuit filed by a coalition of 17 states after Trump issued an executive order suspending federal approval for such projects.
“As New Yorkers face rising energy costs, we need more energy sources, not fewer,” said state Attorney General Letitia James, who led the coalition. “Wind energy is good for our environment, our economy, and our communities. I am grateful the court stepped in to block the administration’s reckless and unlawful crusade against clean energy.”
A judge in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts granted the coalition’s motion for summary judgment that declared he directive illegal and vacated the order.
The coalition filed suit in May after the administration issued a stop-work order halting the 54-turbine Empire Wind 1 project just as offshore construction got underway off Long Beach. The move raised concerns that the 84-turbine Sunrise Wind would be next.
Danish offshore wind farm developer Ørsted began construction last year on Sunrise Wind, which will be seven times bigger than its neighbor, South Fork Wind — the first utility-scale project of its kind in the nation — about 30 miles off the coast of Montauk. The 924-megawatt Sunrise Wind project is expected to power approximately 600,000 homes upon its target completion date in 2026.
Nassau County officials had pushed against wind and energy projects in the region in Long Beach in April
