New York Attorney General Letitia James and Connecticut Attorney General William Tong have welcomed the decision by Federal Judge Patti B. Saris of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts that threw out a directive by President Trump requiring federal agencies to end government support of wind farm projects to generate clean electricity. James and Tong were in a coalition of 18 states that sued to have Trump’s order thrown out.
Judge Saris determined that the Wind Order was arbitrary and capricious and must be set aside.
The lawsuit was filed in May by the coalition of attorneys general as well as the group Alliance for Clean Energy New York and named as defendant Donald J. Trump in his official capacity as president.
The lawsuit said that on Jan. 20, 2025, which was Trump’s first day of his second term in office, Trump issued a sweeping presidential directive suspending all federal approvals for wind energy projects. As a result, countless wind energy project applications were frozen. The lawsuit argued that the blockade on all wind energy projects is unlawful.
“As New Yorkers face rising energy costs, we need more energy sources, not fewer,” James said in reaction to the court decision. “Wind energy is good for our environment, our economy, and our communities. I am grateful the court stepped in to block the administration’s reckless and unlawful crusade against clean energy.”
According to Tong, “Trump’s erratic attacks on wind energy and his bizarre rants about windmills never made any sense. He was going to jack up energy costs for American families and businesses, further our reliance on fossil fuels and foreign oil, and throw workers off good jobs. We sued, we won, and I’m going to keep fighting to protect Connecticut’s ability to secure our own energy future that makes sense for our costs and climate.”
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul welcomed the court decision by saying, “The U.S. District Court’s decision to uphold New York’s nation-leading offshore wind program is a major victory for our state and the entire region. The Trump administration has repeatedly tried to block these projects, risking blackouts and thousands of good-paying jobs.”
In her decision, Judge Saris noted that Trump’s Wind Memo directed federal agencies to suspend issuing all new permits, leases, and other authorizations needed to develop and operate wind energy projects, both onshore and offshore. Several federal agencies immediately ordered an immediate pause in the issuance of all wind energy authorizations when the memo came out.
Saris wrote, “On the same day the Wind Memo was promulgated, the Acting Secretary of the Interior issued a written order ‘temporarily suspend[ing]’ all ‘delegations of authority’ within the Interior Department ‘[t]o issue any onshore or offshore renewable energy authorization, including but not limited to a lease, amendment to a lease, right of way, amendment to a right of way, contract, or any other agreement required to allow for renewable energy development.’”
The judge noted that federal agencies have represented that a Comprehensive Assessment is “underway” and claim that the action against wind projects is only temporary but have provided no information about its timeline or any anticipated end date.
The Trump administration can appeal the judge’s order to the First Circuit Court of Appeals but as of Dec. 9 had not said whether or when it might do so.
Tong recalled that Connecticut and Rhode Island successfully sued the Trump Administration in September to block a stop work order that had halted construction on the Revolution Wind electric generating project located 15 nautical miles off the coast of Rhode Island. Revolution Wind is expected to deliver enough electricity to the New England grid to power 350,000 homes, or 2.5% of the region’s electricity supply beginning next year.
According to Tong, Revolution Wind is projected to save Connecticut and Rhode Island ratepayers hundreds of millions of dollars over 20 years. He said that the Revolution Wind project supports over 2,500 jobs nationwide in the construction, operations, shipbuilding and manufacturing sectors, including over 1,000 union construction jobs.
