Seventeen Democratic state attorneys general filed a lawsuit Monday to block President Trump’s edict stopping the development of wind energy projects around the nation.
Seeking to fulfill a campaign promise, Trump issued a memo among the flurry of actions he took on his first day in office, temporarily halting permits for new onshore wind energy projects on federal land and new leases for offshore wind farms in U.S. coastal waters.
The states’ suit, filed in federal court in Massachusetts, argues that the president is acting outside of his legal authority and has no statutory right to shut down the permitting process unilaterally.
The states want the court to block the memo and restore the wind energy permitting process, saying a failure to do so jeopardizes state investments and economic benefits from wind energy projects, harms states’ ability to provide reliable, affordable electricity to their residents, and impedes states from meeting their energy and climate goals.
New York is one of 15 states that have enacted legislation to move to 100% clean or renewable energy by a specific date. Under a 2019 law, 70% of New York’s electricitymust come from renewable sources by 2030 and 100% from clean sources by 2040.
“This administration is devastating one of our nation’s fastest-growing sources of clean, reliable, and affordable energy,” New York Attorney General Letitia James (D), the lead plaintiff, 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.”
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum recently pulled the plug on New York’s Empire 1 offshore wind project after construction was underway. The project, a planned wind farm off the coast of Montauk, N.Y., that was designed to power up to 500,000 homes and create 1,000 jobs, had been permitted by the Biden administration. Burgum said it had been “rushed through.”
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) vowed to fight the administration over the move.
“Like virtually all the executive orders issued by the President thus far, it sows chaos and upsets the critical regulatory clarity needed for businesses to effectively operate in New York and around the country,” Hochul said in a statement announcing the suit. “New York is not backing down without a fight. … We must not allow this federal overreach to stand.”
As part of an effort to reverse Biden-era climate policies, Trump has called for more domestic energy production. But the avowed climate change skeptic has arrayed his administration to support more fossil fuel extraction and reduce renewable energy development, arguing that it is intermittent, unreliable and drives up energy costs.
According to his 2026 budget proposal released on May 2, Trump is seeking to repeal more than $15 billion of the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law, including $6 billion from a program to install EV chargers, $2 billion from the Energy Department office promoting energy efficiency and renewable energy, and $80 million from an Interior Department program to put wind and solar on public lands.
Read more: How Trump’s budget proposal affects states
But Democratic states have said they would press forward with their climate agendas. For example, at least eight states have introduced legislation this year supporting offshore wind. Those include bills in California and Massachusetts to build out port facilities to help construct wind farms.
“Instead of working with President Trump to unleash American energy and lower prices for American families, Democrat Attorneys General are using lawfare to stop the President’s popular energy agenda,” White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers said. “The American people voted for the President to restore America’s energy dominance, and Americans in blue states should not have to pay the price of the Democrats’ radical climate agenda.”
California also has much to lose from the federal wind energy development moratorium, with five federal offshore wind leases off its coast. Two are located off the coast of Humboldt County, while the remaining three are offshore from Morro Bay.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta (D), who is part of the lawsuit, said those projects would generate enough electricity to power at least 1.6 million homes, but that the president’s directive dashes those plans and would result in increased consumer energy costs.
“The President has promised that his actions would lower energy costs, but instead, energy prices have only gone up and will continue to skyrocket,” Bonta said in a statement. “In California, we will continue to hold the President accountable for breaking the law and protect our significant progress in expanding cleaner, cheaper energy for American families.”
Massachusetts, also part of the suit, has three different offshore wind projects in various stages of development. Once constructed, they will produce enough electricity to power 1.4 million homes. The state is also planning to procure more wind-generated energy to meet its climate goals, but the Trump memo prevents those plans from coming to fruition.
“The President’s attempts to stop homegrown wind energy development directly contradict his claims that there is a growing need for reliable domestic energy,” said Bay State Attorney General Andrea Campbell (D).