A US federal court has struck down President Donald Trump’s ban on issuing new wind energy permits, ruling that the administration acted unlawfully when it froze federal approval of offshore and onshore wind projects.
Trump signed the executive order in January, halting progress on multiple wind developments, including projects already under construction. The move triggered legal action from 17 states and a New York-based clean energy group after a stop-work order was imposed on Empire Wind 1, a major offshore wind farm planned off New York’s coast and expected to power around 500,000 homes.
On Monday, Judge Patti B. Saris of the Massachusetts district court vacated the order, calling it “arbitrary and capricious and contrary to law”. In her ruling, she said federal agencies had failed to “provide a reasoned explanation for the change” or adequate justification for the new permitting freeze.
New York Attorney General Letitia James hailed the verdict as “a big victory in our fight to keep tackling the climate crisis”, saying: “We won our lawsuit and stopped the Trump administration from blocking an array of new wind energy projects.”
The lawsuit, led by New York and filed in May, followed the Interior Department’s directive to Norway’s Equinor to halt work on its Empire Wind development. Although the Trump administration has since allowed construction on Empire Wind to resume, the states argue that the wider freeze on permits continues to harm economic activity across the clean energy sector.
Since returning to office, Trump has sought to prioritise fossil fuels and has repeatedly criticised wind power, saying shortly after his inauguration that “we’re not going to do the wind thing”, and describing turbines as “big, ugly windmills” harmful to wildlife — claims he has not substantiated.
Empire Wind is projected to take two years to complete and be fully operational by the end of 2027, according to project information.
Before entering the White House, Trump had waged — and ultimately lost — a long-running campaign to block a wind farm near his golf course in Aberdeenshire, Scotland.
