The Democratic governors of Rhode Island and Connecticut promised on Saturday to fight a Trump administration order halting work on a nearly complete wind farm off their coasts that was expected to be operational next year.
The Revolution Wind project was about 80% complete, with 45 of its 65 turbines already installed, according to the Danish wind farm developer Ørsted, when the US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management sent the firm a letter on Friday ordering it to “halt all ongoing activities”.
“In particular, BOEM is seeking to address concerns related to the protection of national security interests in the United States,” wrote Matt Giacona, the agency’s acting director, adding that Ørsted “may not resume activities” until the agency has completed a review of the project.
Giacona said that the project, which had already cleared years of federal and state reviews, now needs to be re-examined in light of Donald Trump’s order, on the first day of his second term, to consider “terminating or amending any existing wind energy leases”.
Giacona, whose prior work as a lobbyist for the offshore oil industry alarmed consumer advocates, also said that the review was necessary to “address concerns related to the protection of national security interests of the United States”. He did not specify what those national security concerns are.
Rhode Island’s governor, Dan McKee, criticized the stop-work order and said he and Connecticut’s governor, Ned Lamont, “will pursue every avenue to reverse the decision to halt work on Revolution Wind”, which was “just steps away from powering more than 350,000 homes”.
Senator Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat, connected the decision to Trump’s reported pitch last year to oil industry executives to trade $1bn in campaign donations for regulatory favors. “When the oil industry showed up at Mar-a-Lago with a set of demands in exchange for a $1 billion of campaign support for Trump, this is what they were asking for: the destruction of clean energy in America,” Murpy said in a statement.
“This is a story of corruption, plain and simple. President Trump has sold our country out to big corporations with the oil and gas industry at the top of the list,” the senator added. “I will work with my colleagues and Governor Lamont to pursue all legal paths to get this project back on track.”
Since returning to office, Trump has taken sweeping actions to prioritize fossil fuels and hinder renewable energy projects. Throughout his time in public office, Trump has repeatedly brought up his visceral hatred for wind power, apparently prompted by his belief that offshore turbines spoil the views at his golf courses, and his embrace of the bizarre theory that “the noise causes cancer”.
Trump recently called wind and solar power “THE SCAM OF THE CENTURY!” in a social media post and vowed not to approve wind or “farmer destroying Solar” projects.
Rhode Island’s attorney general, Peter Neronha, said in a statement on Saturday that, without the Revolution Wind project, the state’s Act on Climate law, which aims to use renewable energy to battle global warming, “is dead in the water”.
Scientists agree that nations need to rapidly embrace renewable energy to stave off the worst effects of climate change, including extreme heat and drought; larger, more intense wildfires and supercharged hurricanes, typhoons and rainstorms that lead to catastrophic flooding.
Construction on Revolution Wind began in 2023, and the project was expected to be fully operational next year. Ørsted says it is evaluating the financial impact of stopping construction and considering legal proceedings.
Revolution Wind is located more than 15 miles (24km) south of the Rhode Island coast, 32 miles (51km) south-east of the Connecticut coast and 12 miles (19km) south-west of Martha’s Vineyard. Rhode Island is already home to one offshore wind farm, the five-turbine Block Island Wind Farm.
Revolution Wind was expected to be Rhode Island and Connecticut’s first commercial-scale offshore wind farm, capable of powering more than 350,000 homes. The densely populated states have minimal space available for land-based energy projects, which is why the offshore wind project is considered crucial for the states to meet their climate goals.
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Wind power is the largest source of renewable energy in the US and provides about 10% of the electricity generated in the nation.
Green Oceans, a non-profit that opposes the offshore wind industry, and sued in federal court last year to stop the 83,798-acre (33,912-hectare) Revolution Wind project on environmental grounds, applauded the decision. “We are grateful that the Trump Administration and the federal government are taking meaningful action to preserve the fragile ocean environment off the coasts of Rhode Island and Massachusetts,” the non-profit said in a statement.
This is the second major offshore wind project the Trump White House has halted. Work was previously stopped on Empire Wind, a New York offshore wind project, but construction was allowed to resume after New York’s governor, Kathy Hochul, and senator Chuck Schumer intervened.
“This administration has it exactly backwards. It’s trying to prop up clunky, polluting coal plants while doing all it can to halt the fastest growing energy sources of the future – solar and wind power,” Kit Kennedy, managing director for the power division at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said in a statement. “Unfortunately, every American is paying the price for these misguided decisions.”
The Associated Press contributed reporting
