One of New York’s offshore wind projects is back on track, for now.
The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia granted a preliminary injunction for Norwegian energy firm Equinor to resume construction on its New York offshore wind project, Empire 1.
The Trump administration issued an order to stop work last year on offshore wind projects, citing unspecified safety and national security concerns. Equinor’s lawsuit against the U.S. Department of the Interior’s work stoppage will proceed. The White House responded to a request for comment on the injunction by calling wind energy “the scam of the century.”
“Empire Wind will now focus on safely restarting construction activities that were halted during the suspension period,” Equinor spokesperson Carolyn Spector wrote in a statement. “The project will continue to engage with the U.S. government to ensure the safe, secure and responsible execution of its operations.”
The stop work order also extended to the Sunrise wind project from Danish energy firm Orsted, which is also seeking a preliminary injunction against the order. That case remains pending. A judge granted Orsted a preliminary injunction related to a wind project off the coast of Connecticut and Rhode Island earlier this week
The New York attorney general’s office filed a lawsuit last week against the blockage of the state’s wind projects, calling the order “arbitrary and capricious.”
“I’m sick and tired of having to go to court time and time and time again to stop these decisions,” New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said. “They’re designed to do nothing other than hurt workers, hurt our states, hurt our economy and hurt our energy future. So we won.”
The Empire 1 wind Project, located about 14 miles southeast of Long Island, was scheduled to provide power next year with 54 turbines in the Atlantic Ocean. The project would be the first offshore wind power source connected to New York City. Equinor said the project is well over half complete.
The Sunrise wind project, located about 30 miles east of Montauk, was expected to be operational around the same time. The project is nearly at its halfway point, according to Orsted.
The wind projects underwent more than a decade of extensive national security and safety review and received approval from the U.S. Department of Defense. The federal government has yet to specify its newfound security concerns.
The federal pause came weeks after the attorney general’s office successfully sued the administration over the federal freeze on permitting new wind energy projects.
The Empire 1 and Sunrise projects affected by the work pause employ thousands of union workers. The energy firms and other stakeholders said the halt jeopardizes billions of private and public dollars invested into the construction and the revitalization of local infrastructure, such as Staten Island’s port facilities and the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal. These ports are being redeveloped to serve as supply and construction hubs for offshore wind.
“Despite the good news of these decisions, they still do not ensure that these projects will be completed,” said Rob Freudenberg, vice president for energy and environment at advocacy group the Regional Plan Association, in a statement. “Even an ultimate victory against the Administration’s freeze – based on supposed National Security concerns – does not prevent them from taking additional steps to disrupt, delay, or cease the projects.”
This story has been updated with additional reporting.
