A federal judge has ruled that an offshore wind project aimed at powering 600,000 New York homes may resume construction, the fifth such project put back on track after the Trump administration halted them in December.<\/p>\n
In clearing the way for Sunrise Wind to proceed, Judge Royce Lamberth found that the government had not shown that offshore wind is such an imminent national security risk that it must halt in the United States.<\/p>\n
President Trump has said his goal is to not let any \u201cwindmills\u201d be built, and often talks about his hatred of wind power. His administration froze five big offshore wind projects on the East Coast days before Christmas, citing national security concerns. Developers and states sued to block the order. White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers has repeatedly said during the legal battle over the pause that Trump has been clear that \u201cwind energy is the scam of the century\u201d and the pause is meant to protect the national security of the American people. <\/p>\n
Danish company Orsted sued the administration over halting both Sunrise Wind and its Revolution Wind for Rhode Island and Connecticut. In a preliminary injunction hearing on Sunrise Wind at the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Monday, Lamberth cited many of the same reasons that he used when he ruled in January that construction could continue on Revolution Wind.<\/p>\n
Sunrise Wind said it would resume work as soon as possible. The project is roughly 45% complete and is expected to be operational next year. <\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t clear whether the administration would appeal. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management declined to comment on the litigation.<\/p>\n
Though all five projects have been cleared to resume, the construction pause has cost developers millions of dollars and, along with Trump\u2019s sustained attacks on renewable energies of all kinds, injected uncertainty and additional risk into future projects. Such delays also mean additional costs for ratepayers, said Hillary Bright, executive director of the offshore wind advocacy group Turn Forward.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt a time when electricity demand is rising rapidly and grid reliability is under increasing strain,\u201d Bright said, \u201cthese projects represent critically needed utility-scale power sources that are making progress toward completion.\u201d<\/p>\n
Other federal judges allowed construction to restart in January on the Empire Wind project for New York by Norwegian company Equinor, Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind for Virginia by Dominion Energy Virginia, and Vineyard Wind for Massachusetts by Avangrid and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners.<\/p>\n
Bright estimated the projects combined would generate six gigawatts of electricity, powering 2.5 million American homes and businesses. <\/p>\n
In a statement, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, called Monday\u2019s ruling a \u201cbig win\u201d for the state\u2019s future, insisting that \u201cenergy independence is national security.\u201d The state\u2019s attorney general, Letitia James, sued the Trump administration over halting Sunrise Wind and Empire Wind because she said the pause threatens New York\u2019s economy and energy grid. <\/p>\n
Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, the top Democrat on the Senate environment committee, said the judges\u2019 rulings show that the administration\u2019s claims about security and the high costs of wind power don\u2019t stand up to scrutiny. <\/p>\n
\u201cEnough is enough,\u201d Whitehouse said, adding that the \u201cirrational and unpredictable\u201d attempts to stifle the offshore wind industry were bad for the wider economy. <\/p>\n
Sunrise Wind said in court documents that the stop-work order was costing the project at least $1.25 million per day, a figure that would increase in February if construction couldn\u2019t resume. It also said if the work stoppage continued past the first week of February, it might force cancellation.<\/p>\n
Trump has also dismissed offshore wind developments as ugly, but Orsted says the Sunrise Wind project will be at least 30 miles east of Long Island\u2019s Montauk Point, virtually unnoticeable from Long Island. Sunrise Wind will be capable of generating 924 megawatts, enough clean energy to power about 600,000 New York homes.<\/p>\n
McDermott and St. John write for the Associated Press. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A federal judge has ruled that an offshore wind project aimed at powering 600,000 New York homes may…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":121443,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1527,53188,53184,5112,53185,9,11,53183,10,49,51,50,21755,53187,53186,2304,20120,530,44569,655,21756],"class_list":["post-121442","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-construction","tag-electricity-demand","tag-hillary-bright","tag-judge","tag-national-security-concern","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-home","tag-new-york-news","tag-new-york-state","tag-new-york-state-headlines","tag-new-york-state-news","tag-offshore-wind","tag-offshore-wind-project","tag-pause","tag-president-trump","tag-project","tag-state","tag-sunrise-wind","tag-trump-administration","tag-wind-power"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121442","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=121442"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121442\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/121443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}