The Trump administration suffered a series of legal setbacks this week after judges allowed work to restart on several offshore wind farms under construction on the East Coast.
The Department of the Interior had ordered a stop to five projects totaling 6 gigawatts of generating capacity in December, citing national security concerns. The judicial orders will allow three projects to resume construction: Revolution Wind off Rhode Island, Empire Wind off New York, and Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind off — you guessed it — Virginia.
The developers each filed lawsuits shortly after the Trump administration issued the stop work order, which had been effective for 90 days.
When announcing the halt just days before Christmas, the government cited concerns the wind farms would interfere with radar operations. It’s a valid concern, and one the government and project developers grappled with throughout the siting and permitting process. Wind farms can be located to minimize disruption to existing radar facilities, and the radar equipment itself can be upgraded to filter out noise generated by whirling turbine blades.
President Trump himself has made it no secret that he’s not a fan of offshore wind: “I’m not much of a windmill person,” he told oil executives last week.
In early hearings, judges weren’t impressed with the government’s line of reasoning. In three separate courtrooms in Virginia and Washington, DC, the Trump administration’s arguments were met with skepticism.
U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols, a Trump appointee, pointed out the government failed to address several of plaintiff Equinor’s arguments in its lawsuit. Equinor, which is developing Empire Wind, had alleged the Interior department’s order was “arbitrary and capricious.” “Your brief doesn’t even include the word arbitrary,” Nichols said, according to the Associated Press.
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Nichols also questioned why the Trump administration was asking for construction to be halted when its main conce …