A federal judge on Monday ruled that President Donald Trump's administration had failed to justify its decision to suspend issuing leases and permits for new wind projects in keeping with the Republican president's wishes.
U.S. District Judge Patti Saris in Boston sided with a group of 17 Democrat-led states and the District of Columbia in finding that agencies had failed to sufficiently explain why they had indefinitely paused all federal approvals of wind-energy projects.
Saris, who was appointed by Dem President Bill Clinton, said an indefinite halt on issuing or denying all authorizations related to wind projects violates a statutory requirement that agencies proceed to conclude matters presented to them “within a reasonable time.”
The U.S. Departments of the Interior and Commerce as well as the Environmental Protection Agency had been implementing a directive Trump made on his first day back in office to halt offshore wind lease sales and stop issuing permits, leases and loans for both onshore and offshore wind projects.
New York Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat whose state led the legal challenge, called the ruling "a big victory in our fight to keep tackling the climate crisis" in a social media post.
Interior Department and White House officials were not immediately available for comment.
An offshore wind energy trade group welcomed the ruling.
"Overturning the unlawful blanket halt to offshore wind permitting activities is needed to achieve our nation's energy and economic priorities of bringing more power online quickly, improving grid reliability, and driving billions of new American steel manufacturing and shipbuilding investments," Oceantic Network CEO Liz Burdock said in a statement.
Trump has sought to boost government support for fossil fuels 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."
The states, led by New York, sued in May, after the Interior Department ordered Norway's Equinor to halt construction on its Empire Wind offshore wind project off the coast of New York.
While the administration allowed work on Empire Wind to resume, the states say the broader pause on permitting and leasing continues to have harmful economic effects.
The states said the agencies implementing Trump's order never said why they were abruptly changing longstanding policy supporting wind energy development. The agencies also departed from government findings that wind projects can proceed with minimal adverse effects on the environment, the states said.
Saris agreed, saying the policy "constitutes a change of course from decades of agencies’ issuing (or denying) permits related to wind energy projects." She said the agencies never provided a reasoned explanation for adopting the change.
"Indeed, the Agency Defendants candidly concede that the sole factor they considered in deciding to stop issuing permits was the President’s direction to do so," Saris wrote.
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