A group of 18 Democratic state attorneys general filed suit May 5 against President Donald Trump’s executive order that halted wind energy projects’ federal approvals. 

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for Massachusetts, seeks an injunction against the order so federal agencies can resume working on projects as the litigation is pending. The complainants include states that were banking on major offshore wind projects that have been interrupted, like New Jersey and New York, as well as many that were impacted by the order’s impact on onshore wind, such as California and New Mexico. 

“This administration is devastating one of our nation’s fastest-growing sources of clean, reliable and affordable energy,” New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement. “This arbitrary and unnecessary directive threatens the loss of thousands of good-paying jobs and billions in investments, and it is delaying our transition away from the fossil fuels that harm our health and our planet.” 

The order, which Trump issued on the first day of his new term, categorically halted all federal approvals needed for offshore and onshore wind energy, pending an “amorphous” and “extra-statutory” multiagency review of unknown duration. The order cited past, unspecified legal deficiencies and directed relevant federal agencies to stop issuing new or renewed approvals, rights of way, permits, leases or loans for onshore and offshore wind pending the review. (See Critics Slam Trump’s Freeze on New OSW Leases.) 

Agencies have implemented the executive order, with the Department of the Interior even issuing a stop-work order on Empire Wind 1 off New York, which had begun early construction activities. (See Feds Move to Halt Construction of Empire Wind 1.) 

The federal stoppage has harmed states’ efforts to secure reliable, diversified and affordable sources of energy to meet increasing demand, preventing the economic benefits associated with development and the environmental benefits of more clean energy. 

“The various actions taken by agency defendants to implement the wind directive are arbitrary and capricious under the Administrative Procedure Act,” the lawsuit says. “First, the wind directive was issued with no reasoned explanation for its categorical and indefinite halt of wind energy development. Second, neither the wind directive nor agency defendants have offered any detailed justification to explain the abrupt change in longstanding federal policy supporting the development of wind energy.” 

Numerous laws require federal agencies to consider and issue decisions on applications for wind energy projects, including the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, the National Environmental Policy Act and the Endangered Species Act. 

“Under these authorities, agency defendants must comprehensively, but promptly, review, approve, deny or otherwise act on applications to construct and operate wind energy facilities, following specific procedures and standards,” the lawsuit says. 

Previous presidential administrations, including Trump’s first, implemented those laws faithfully and often celebrated the growth in wind energy that resulted. In Trump’s first term, seven offshore wind lease auctions were conducted, multiple leases to offshore wind energy developers were issued, and the administration processed environmental reviews of many projects. 

Agencies already have looked into wind projects’ impact on fisheries, tourism and the environment and found their effects were at least acceptable for projects to move forward. Courts have reviewed some of those projects and come down on the side of the agencies. 

“The wind directive reverses the robust federal support for wind energy that had spanned decades and multiple administrations, does not account for agency defendants’ extensive past federal review of wind development, and conflicts with President Trump and agency defendants’ concurrent promotion of domestic energy production, both as a general matter and specifically in several of our states,” the lawsuit says. 

The order calls on the secretary of the Interior to run the review in consultation with secretaries of the Treasury, Agriculture, Commerce and Energy, and the EPA administrator. 

“Despite the extensive past reviews of wind energy projects by agency defendants — indeed, ignoring the existence of these reviews — the directive orders that the assessment consider anew ‘the environmental impact of onshore and offshore wind projects upon wildlife’ and the ‘economic costs associated with the intermittent generation of electricity,’” the complaint says. 

The directive was one of several Trump issued on his first day in office this January, which also included one addressing an “energy emergency.” (See Trump Will Need More than Executive Orders for US to Meet Rising Power Demand.) 

Other executive actions since then have emphasized the need for more energy, but the wind order goes against all of them, the lawsuit says. 

The order takes a low-cost, clean and abundant energy option off the table at a time when Americans need more affordable electricity, said Environmental Defense Fund Lead Counsel for U.S. Clean Energy Ted Kelly. 

“Instead of tapping into America’s vast wind resources and growing this industry, the administration is blocking energy progress,” Kelly said in a statement. “These attorneys general are right to challenge the Trump administration’s illegal attempts to obstruct wind energy.”