A federal judge handed the Trump administration another major loss in its effort to halt offshore wind construction on the East Coast.
Judge Royce Lamberth of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia sided with Sunrise Wind on Monday in its bid to lift the administration’s freeze on construction of the project. The decision marks the fifth loss for the Trump administration over stop-work orders it launched last year for five offshore wind projects already being constructed off U.S. coastlines.
“Pointing to ongoing national security concerns based on purportedly new classified information does not constitute a sufficient explanation for the bureau’s decision to entirely stop work on the Sunrise Wind project,” Lamberth said.
Sunrise Wind, a 924-megawatt offshore wind project off the coast of New York, argued the government’s order is “wholly conclusory, internally inconsistent, and overbroad.” If allowed to remain in force, the cost would grow to more than $2.5 million per day, with losses of more than $8 billion should the project be canceled, an attorney for the project said. Sunrise Wind said it already spent $7 billion to develop the project, which is now roughly 45 percent complete.
