US judge weighs if Trump administration can lawfully halt wind projects

By Nate Raymond

BOSTON, Nov 18 (Reuters) - A federal judge on Tuesday wrestled with whether President Donald Trump's administration had acted lawfully when it halted permitting of new wind projects nationwide.

U.S. District Judge Patti Saris, during a hearing in Boston in a lawsuit by 17 Democratic-led states and the District of Columbia, questioned whether federal agencies could lawfully implement the Trump-directed pause by "simply saying the president told me to do it."

The U.S. Departments of Commerce and Interior and the Environmental Protection Agency had all acted to implement a directive the president made on his first day back in office on January 20 to halt offshore wind lease sales and stop issuing permits, leases and loans for both onshore and offshore wind projects.

He issued that directive while also moving to ramp up the federal government's support for the fossil fuel industry and maximize output in the United States, the world's top oil and gas producer, after campaigning for the presidency on the refrain of "drill, baby, drill."

Massachusetts Assistant Attorney General Turner Smith said at the hearing that the states had "spent years and billions of dollars investing in the development of wind energy to provide clean, reliable, and affordable energy for our residents."

She said all that planning had been upended by the agencies' "wholly unexplained and unreasoned" decisions to halt permitting based on Trump's directive and that they were required under the Administrative Procedure Act to provide a reasoned decision for their actions that was consistent with the law.

Justice Department attorney Michael Robertson said the pause was only temporary, and that any challenge to the policy needed to be pursued on a case-by-case basis by wind project developers if the agencies act unreasonably in delaying permits.

But Saris, who was appointed by Democratic President Bill Clinton, noted that no permit had been issued in the 10-plus months since Trump's directive, meaning "it's not like a temporary stop because someone had COVID, it's like indefinite."

She said she saw a "problem" with the administration's arguments. While the administration acknowledged that agencies must still act on a rational and reasoned basis under the APA, she noted that if Trump directs U.S. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum not to approve a wind project, he will comply.

"I feel myself in a sort of an Alice in Wonderland world here a little bit," Saris said.

The states, led by Massachusetts and New York, filed the lawsuit in May challenging the widespread pause after Burgum in April directed the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management's acting director to order a unit of Norwegian energy firm Equinor EQNR.OL to halt construction on its Empire Wind offshore wind project off New York.

While the administration allowed work on Empire Wind to resume later in May, the states say the broader pause on permitting has continued to have harmful effects, as evidenced by an order issued in August requiring Orsted to stop construction on the more than 80%-complete Revolution Wind project off the coast of Rhode Island.

After Orsted sued over that decision, U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth in Washington, D.C. on September 22 sided with the company and ruled it could restart work on the Revolution Wind project.

The case is State of New York et al v. Trump, U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, No. 1:25-cv-11221.

For the states: Turner Smith of the Massachusetts Attorney General's Office

For the Alliance for Clean Energy New York: James Auslander of Beveridge & Diamond

For the U.S.: Michael Robertson of the Justice Department