Trump greenlights NY offshore wind project with Gov Hochul, opponents file lawsuits to stop deal

The Trump administration has given an offshore wind developer the green light to proceed with construction of a controversial project off the coast of New York, one month after pausing the project to determine if the Biden administration’s approval of the project was based on a sound analysis of the impacts. 

Opponents of Empire Wind, a 54-turbine project south of Long Island, New York, say they are confused and disappointed with the administration’s sudden change of heart. 

“We've been trying to figure out what the whiplash was about,” Amy DiSibio, board member for Nantucket-based ACK For Whales, told Just the News. 

The Department of the Interior’s decision to halt the project was temporary, and opponents say they are hoping for more permanent decisions through other avenues, including the courts. 

Art of the pipeline deal 

Norway-based Equinor, the developer of Empire Wind, said in a statement Monday that the Department of the Interior had lifted the stopwork order the department had issued last month. 

While the company was vocal in announcing construction would resume, it was much quieter in April when construction was first initiated. The company issued no press release, and the public only became aware that the first stages of Empire Wind's construction had started because of an email sent over a mariner group list on March 24 stating that rock installation was beginning on the Empire Wind 1 lease area.

The following April, the Trump administration halted construction on Empire Wind pending further review. The decision was based on “new information” suggesting the approval of the project was “rushed through without sufficient analysis.” 

Opponents have long criticized the Biden administration for rushing through approvals of Empire Wind and other projects on the East Coast without proper review of the impacts to historic sites, fishing and marine wildlife. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum’s decision to do a deeper dive into the permits gave them hope. 

Citing unnamed sources, the Washington Free Beacon reported that the sudden reversal came as New York Gov. Kathy Hochul agreed to advance two natural gas pipeline projects. In a post on X, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum praised Hochul’s willingness to move forward with “critical pipeline capacity.” 

“Americans who live in New York and New England would see significant economic benefits and lower utility costs from increased access to reliable, affordable, clean American natural gas,” Burgum said. 

In a statement, Hochul touted her success in securing jobs and “clean energy,” and made no mention of pipelines. Instead, she said she would work with the administration and private entities on “new energy projects that meet the legal requirements under New York law.”

Mixed signals

Dr. Robert Stern, president of Save Long Beach Island (SaveLBI), a New Jersey-based group opposing offshore wind, called the reversal a “big surprise.” 

“We're not particularly happy about that. It seems to send sort of a mixed signal about things,” Stern said. 

Last week, SaveLBI was joined by Save the East Coast, Protect Our Coast Long Island-New York, and Miss Belmar, a whale-watching tourism company, in a lawsuit challenging the approval of the project. Their complaint argues that the Biden administration had authorized the construction and operation of the project without adequately safeguarding marine mammals and properly assessing the project’s full environmental impact. 

Stern said that SaveLBI hadn’t been looking at Empire Wind, as it was much further north of them than the proposed Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind project, which had its permits pulled in March. Stern said that after conversations with activists in New York, he began to take a closer look at the impacts of Empire Wind. 

“The more we looked into it, the more we realized it does affect us pretty significantly,” Stern said. 

SaveLBI has inserted itself into the legal and political landscape of opposition to offshore wind projects. Aside from lawsuits, the opposition has, in the name of protecting marine mammals, petitioned the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to establish a corridor along the East Coast for the North Atlantic right whale to migrate. 

“This critically endangered whale needs to migrate back and forth each year in order to survive. And we've been concerned for some time that a number of these projects were situated right in their historical path. We do not think that bodes well for the whales’ survival,” Stern said. 

The lawsuit filed last week argues that the federal government’s approval of an Incidental Take Authorization (ITA), is illegal. The lawsuit alleges that the ITA permits Empire Wind to disturb or harm thousands of marine mammals, including over 30% of the northern migratory coastal bottlenose dolphin population annually. This, if true, surpasses the legal limits allowed under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the lawsuit argues. 

“Authorizing the take of nearly one-third of a protected dolphin population in a single year, and the majority of that population over the course of the project’s 5-year period, is not just illegal, it’s ecologically reckless,” Stern said in a statement. 

Do it the right way: in court, on the merits

Legal action can come from many directions, and Equinor, the Wall Street Journal reported, was weighing legal options against the Trump administration to get the now-lifted stop-work order rescinded, including an appeal.

Elmer Peter Danenberger, a petroleum engineer who worked in the DOI’s offshore oil and gas program for 38 years, wrote on his “Bud’s Offshore Energy” website that it’s possible the Trump administration backed down because it would likely lose in court. The Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act grants the Interior Secretary broad authority to suspend activities when necessary to ensure safety, protect the environment or allow for further study of potential impacts.  

However, Danenberger wrote, Burgum would need a very strong justification to do so indefinitely.

Ack4Whales' DiSibio said that the organization believes the Biden administration permitted multiple offshore wind projects illegally. The group says it is going to file a lawsuit this week against New England Wind 1 and 2, arguing that the approval came without proper review of the projects’ impacts. 

While Burgum’s decision to unfreeze the project was disappointing, she said, the decision to halt the project and Trump’s moratorium on offshore wind leasing are tentative. In both cases, actions were taken to do a more thorough analysis of the impacts of offshore wind. Looking at it objectively, DiSibio said, there’s an opportunity here to do that. 

“I don't think we should be able to just use a magic wand and shut any of them down. We should go through the proper channels and really do the review and really do the work, as the executive order said. As much as I think there are good reasons to shut this down, let's do it the right way and shut these all down for good. Otherwise they all just come back,” DiSibio said. 

Stern said he’s comfortable letting the courts decide the merits of the opponents’ arguments. 

“You go before a court, you have to present your evidence, and that's fine. Let's go through that process and we present ours, they present theirs. Let's see what a judge thinks,” Stern said.