Revolution Wind fired back at the Interior Department in a scathing court filing Friday, calling the government’s decision to halt the nearly completed offshore wind project “a shockingly expansive theory of agency power.”
The wind project’s filing sets the stage for a high-stakes hearing Monday in federal court. Revolution Wind is seeking a temporary injunction to overturn the Trump administration’s order, arguing the project may be canceled if work is not allowed to resume by next week. A global shortage of specialized installation vessels means the ships contracted to build the project only have a matter of months before they move on to other projects.
Interior has argued the project failed to satisfy the terms of its permit. It pointed to concerns by the Department of Defense regarding fiber-optic sensors and electromagnetic emissions, though it did not describe specific concerns about either issue. The government also said the project had failed to come to an agreement with regulators over its impact on federal fishery surveys, and it argued the permit did not account for the project’s effects on cod spawning grounds.
Revolution Wind took the government to task on each of those fronts, noting the Navy had not raised any issues with its draft plans to use fiber-optic sensors or survey activity that generated electromagnetic emissions. It also argued that Interior had failed to note the extensive mitigation requirements in the permit relating to cod spawning grounds, adding that the issue was already moot because the project’s 65 turbines were installed by the time the stop-work order was issued in August. And it said it had not reached an agreement with regulators on fishing surveys because the government had sought a delay in order to implement a regional plan that encompassed other wind projects.
