ROADLEY, Providence (AP) — The developer of the offshore wind farm, which drives 350,000 homes in Connecticut, Rhode Island and two states, said Thursday they are suing the Trump administration. Stop the almost finished project.
Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronya has accused President Donald Trump of “full assault” in the wind energy industry. The state’s lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Rhode Island describes the revolutionary-wind project as a “cornerstone” of the future of clean energy, and described it as a sudden halt by federal officials without “legal authority, regulatory justification, or de facto basis.”
Danish energy company Orsted has filed another lawsuit in the US District Court in Washington, D.C., claiming that the administration has no legal authority to stop the revolutionary-wind project. Orsted said it is seeking a temporary injunction that would allow the project to move forward. This is 80% complete, with 45 of all underwater foundations and 65 turbines installed.
Home Affairs spokesman Elizabeth Peace said Thursday that the department had not commented on the pending lawsuit.
Project work has been suspended On August 22, when the Maritime Energy Management Administration issued a halt work order for what it said was a national security concern. They did not identify those concerns.
Trump is like that Hostile from renewable energyespecially offshore wind, and Prioritize electric fossil fuels. The Revolutionary Wind is the second major wind project that his administration ordered to halt work. First, Offshore Wind Project For New York, It was allowed to resume later construction.
In a recent separate federal court filing, the administration said it is reconsidering approvals for three wind farms: Maryland Offshore Wind Project, South Coast Wind and New England Wind. Combined, these projects could power nearly 2.5 million homes in Maryland, Massachusetts and Rhode Island with clean electricity.
Massachusetts Democrats Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren said Trump and his cabinet “need to end the war with America’s energy and work.”
“Swarm drone attack” cited as a reason to stop work
Interior Secretary Doug Burgham told CNN he was concerned that offshore wind turbines are distorting radar detection systems.
I have retired from the US Navy CMDR. Kirk Lipold called it a “specific and false story” pushed out by people who “over-imaginative imagination in search of solutions to problems that do not exist.” Lipold was commanding the USS call in 2000 when al-Qaeda attacked it at Yemen port.
If the drone was acquired to be near a wind farm without being detected by the military, he said, “We have a massive intelligence – national security – failure.”
Senator Jack Reed, Rhode Island Democrat and National Security Expert It also challenges the administration’s rationale.pointing to the involvement of the Department of Defense in reviewing the project.
When approved the revolutionary winds in 2023, the Maritime Energy Management said it had consulted with the Department of Defense at each stage of the regulating process for the leasing area allocated to wind farms. DOD concluded, with some site-specific provisions, that, according to the decision record, the impact on training and activities in wind energy areas was “negligible and avoidable.”
It took about nine years for state and federal reviews.
Trump and several cabinet members repeatedly accused the strong winds of being ugly expensive at last week’s cabinet meeting. Health and Human Services Director Robert F. Kennedy Jr. spoke about the failure of a large-scale wind turbine blade at a different offshore wind farm under construction off Nantucket, Massachusetts.
The fiberglass fragments of the blades of the Vineyard Wind Project broke and began washing track and field last summer during the peak tourist season. Manufacturer Ge Vernova agreed Paying $10.5 million in settlement To compensate the island businesses that suffered losses due to blade failure.
Kennedy’s family famously opposed the early, failed wind project, not too far from the family’s Cape Cod Estate.
“We don’t allow windmills to go up unless there is a legal situation where someone has committed to it quite a while ago.”
Windfarm was on track to provide power in 2026
The Wind of Revolution is expected to be Rhode Island and Connecticut’s first large offshore wind farm, offering around 2.5% of the region’s electricity needs.
Orsted began construction in 2024 about 15 miles (24 kilometers) south of the Rhode Island Coast. The complaint states that about $5 billion has been spent or committed, and if the project is cancelled, it is expected to cost more than $1 billion. Rhode Island already has one offshore wind farm, a 5-turbine block island wind farm.
Rhode Island and Connecticut say halting the construction of revolutionary winds will harm the state, its residents, investments and the offshore wind industry. With over 1,000 people working in wind farms, Connecticut has committed over $200 million to redevelop the New London state pier to support the industry.
The state said it relies on electricity from revolutionary winds in winter, when demand in New England is prioritized for heating. The electricity cost 9.8 cents per kilowatt-hour and was locked up for 20 years. This is cheaper than the average predicted energy cost in New England.
Katie Dykes, head of Connecticut’s top environmental and energy agency, predicts that if wind projects don’t come online, it will cost the state’s electricity bill payers tens of millions of dollars. She also noted the risks to New England’s power reliability cited by independent systems operators in the region.
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Associated Press authors Matthew Daly of Washington and Susan Hay of Hartford, Connecticut, contributed to the report.
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