By MICHAEL PHILLIS and JENNIFER McDERMOTT, Associated Press<\/p>\n
WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 A federal judge is considering whether to set aside a Trump administration order\u00a0pausing construction on a major offshore wind farm<\/a>\u00a0for New York, which the developer says could mean the death of a project that\u2019s 60% complete.<\/p>\n The Empire Wind project is designed to power more than 500,000 homes. Norwegian company Equinor said the project was in jeopardy due to the limited availability of specialized vessels, as well as heavy financial losses. It\u2019s one of five big offshore wind projects on the East Coast that the administration froze days before Christmas, citing national security concerns.\u00a0Developers and states have sued<\/a>\u00a0seeking to block the order.<\/p>\n The case was heard Wednesday by District Judge\u00a0Carl J. Nichols<\/a>, an appointee of President Donald Trump. Nichols ended the hearing without ruling, saying he needed to think about it but would decide very quickly.<\/p>\n The government filed their national security reasoning in secret for Nichols to review. The administration hasn\u2019t publicly revealed specifics about the national security concerns, and at least one expert says the offshore projects were permitted following years of careful review that included the Department of Defense.<\/p>\n During the hearing, Nichols said the government\u2019s main security concern seemed to be over operation of the wind turbines, not construction \u2013 a contention the government would later disagree with.<\/p>\n He also sharply questioned the government for not responding to key points in Empire Wind\u2019s court filings, like the accusation the Trump administration didn\u2019t follow the right procedures and acted arbitrarily.<\/p>\n \u201cYour brief doesn\u2019t even include the word arbitrary,\u201d the judge said. When the government said they were still contesting Empire Wind\u2019s arguments on these points, Nichols responded, \u201cThis is not the way we do things.\u201d<\/p>\n Equinor\u2019s hearing is the second of three for these legal challenges this week; on Monday, a judge ruled that a project serving Rhode Island and Connecticut could resume.<\/p>\n Trump has targeted offshore wind from his first days back in the White House, most recently calling wind farms \u201closers\u201d that lose money, destroy the landscape and kill birds.<\/p>\n The administration\u2019s stance against offshore wind and renewable energy more broadly\u00a0runs counter<\/a>\u00a0to dozens of other countries.\u00a0Nearly all of the new electricity<\/a>\u00a0added to the grid in 2024 was renewable.<\/p>\n The British government said Wednesday that it secured a record 8.4 gigawatts of offshore wind in\u00a0Europe\u2019s largest offshore wind auction<\/a>\u00a0to date, enough clean electricity to power more than 12 million homes. It said that as Britain races to cut bills and meet growing energy demand, the price for offshore wind agreed to in the auction is 40% cheaper than the cost of building and operating a new gas power plant.<\/p>\n Molly Morris, Equinor\u2019s senior vice president overseeing Empire Wind, said federal officials have not given them any explanation of the national security concerns or how to mitigate them.<\/p>\n A specialized heavy lift vessel, Heerema\u2019s Sleipnir, must begin lifting the topside to the project\u2019s offshore substation off the transport ship and onto its foundation because the Sleipnir is scheduled to depart by Feb. 1 for other commitments, Morris said. The topside weighs more than 3,000 tons and there are few specialized offshore wind installation ships in the world. Equinor\u2019s limited liability company has spent about $4 billion to develop and construct the project.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have been clear and consistent that we are ready to address any additional security concerns that were not already addressed through our lengthy engagement with various defense agencies,\u201d Morris said.<\/p>\n Monday\u2019s hearing was<\/a>\u00a0in the same federal court, with Danish energy company Orsted prevailing. A judge ruled that work on its project, called Revolution Wind, can resume while the administration considers ways to mitigate its national security concerns. Revolution Wind is nearly complete.<\/p>\n After that hearing, White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers said the pause is meant to protect the national security of the American people, and \u201cwe look forward to ultimate victory on the issue.\u201d<\/p>\n The Trump administration paused 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.\u00a0New York\u2019s attorney general sued<\/a>\u00a0the Trump administration on Friday over Empire Wind and Sunrise Wind. The administration previously halted work on both\u00a0Empire Wind<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Revolution Wind<\/a>.<\/p>\n McDermott reported from Providence, Rhode Island.<\/p>\n The Associated Press\u2019 climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP\u2019s standards<\/a> for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By MICHAEL PHILLIS and JENNIFER McDERMOTT, Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 A federal judge is considering whether to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":100344,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[46019,153,41006,9,24,46018,63,134,136,135],"class_list":["post-100343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-staten-island","tag-district-judge-carl-j-nichols","tag-donald-trump","tag-equinor","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-offshore-wind-farm-developer","tag-nyc","tag-staten-island","tag-staten-island-headlines","tag-staten-island-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100343"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100343\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/100344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}