The Trump administration issued an order on April 16th to stop construction on a major offshore wind project that would power more than 500,000 New York homes.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum directed the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) to halt construction on Empire Wind, a fully-permitted project. Burgum said the project would remain halted pending “further review of information that suggests the Biden administration rushed through its approval without sufficient analysis.”
The Norwegian company Equinor is building Empire Wind to provide power in 2026. Equinor finalized the federal lease for Empire Wind in March 2017, early in President Donald Trump’s first term. BOEM approved the construction and operations plan in February 2024, and construction began that year.
Equinor said Wednesday it had just received a notification from BOEM and it will engage directly with the agency and the Interior Department to understand the questions raised about the permits. The project is located southeast of Long Island, New York.
A review by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) appears to back up the Trump administration’s concerns. The agency found the Empire Wind approval process relied on rushed, outdated, and incomplete scientific and environmental analysis, leading to project leaders making decisions not based on the best available information.
NOAA said that “monitoring plans to assess project effects on fisheries and habitat resources were inadequate, and existing compensation mechanisms fell short due to flawed scientific methodologies.” Ultimately, these deficiencies “limited the ability to avoid and minimize conflicts between development and marine resources at both stages.”
“Critical areas that support commercial and recreational fisheries were not excluded from leasing, and proposals that emphasized maximum development scenarios further restricted opportunities to reduce impacts on fisheries and important habitats,” the NOAA’s study found.
Despite these concerns, New York Governor Kathy Hochul has vowed to fight the Trump administration’s decision to halt the project.
After Burgum announced the project was being halted, Hochul slammed the decision, saying, “Permits secured. Shovels in the ground. 1,000 union workers earning a paycheck. Now the federal government wants to kill Empire Wind 1, putting jobs, affordable energy, and our economic future at risk.”
Hochul pledged to “fight them every step of the way.”
The American Clean Power industry association said, “Halting construction of fully permitted energy projects is the literal opposite of an energy abundance agenda. With skyrocketing energy demand and increasing consumer prices, we need streamlined permitting for all domestic energy resources. Doubling back to reconsider permits after projects are under construction sends a chilling signal to all energy investment.
“These political reversals are bad policy, whether applied to pipelines or wind farms. We encourage the Administration to quickly address perceived inadequacies in the prior permit approvals so that this project can complete construction and bring much needed power to the grid. At the end of the day, reliable energy systems depend on reliable political systems.”
The Biden administration sought to ramp up offshore wind as a climate change solution, setting national goals to deploy offshore wind energy, holding lease sales, and approving nearly a dozen commercial-scale offshore wind energy projects. The nation’s first commercial-scale offshore wind farm opened a year ago, a 12-turbine wind farm called South Fork Wind 35 miles (56 kilometers) east of Montauk Point, New York.
Trump began reversing the country’s energy policies on his first day in office with executive orders aimed at boosting oil, gas, and coal. The administration is reviewing all existing and pending offshore wind permits.
Last month, the administration revoked the Clean Air Permit for an offshore wind project off the coast of New Jersey, Atlantic Shores. Construction on that wind farm had not yet begun.
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By Yahoo News, the Associated Press, and American Clean Power
Tagged with wind power