Trump’s biggest swipe at offshore wind yet

On Wednesday afternoon, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum directed the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management to halt construction on Equinor’s Empire Wind project off the New York coast. It’s a new frontier for President Donald Trump’s war on offshore wind, marking the first time his administration has attempted to shut down a fully permitted, in-construction project.

In a post on X, Burgum said the order will allow for “further review of information that suggests the Biden administration rushed through its approval without sufficient analysis.” Equinor had been planning the Empire Wind project for years, receiving its first site assessment approval from BOEM in 2018, during Trump’s first term. The Biden administration issued final approval for the project in November 2023.

When construction began just a few weeks ago, Equinor didn’t create a spectacle. The company didn’t issue a press release, hold a ribbon cutting, or even respond to multiple requests for comment from Canary Media’s Clare Fieseler. Hillary Bright, executive director of offshore wind advocacy group Turn Forward, offered an explanation to Canary: “It’s about not wanting to stick their heads up and drawing more attention, potentially, from the administration.”

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul immediately decried the Interior Department’s move as “federal overreach,” saying in a statement that she “will fight this every step of the way to protect union jobs, affordable energy and New York’s economic future.”

Like it is for other Northeast states, offshore wind is critical to New York’s renewable energy goals. The state aims to get 70% of its power from renewable sources by 2030. 

Including Empire Wind, there are five offshore wind projects under construction in the U.S. and nine that have received all of the necessary permits to start building. The developers of those projects already faced a difficult political environment, but this week’s order cranks up the risk and uncertainty even further. The effects could spill over well beyond the world of offshore wind, according to a statement from Liz Burdock, president and CEO of Oceantic Network. 

“Stopping work on the fully federally permitted Empire Wind 1 offshore project should send chills across all industries investing in and holding contracts with the United States government. Preventing a permitted and financed energy project from moving forward sends a loud and clear message to all businesses — beyond those in the offshore wind industry — that their investment in the U.S. is not safe.”

Two judges this week ruled to unfreeze billions of dollars in federal funding for climate and clean energy projects. The first decision, from a federal judge in Rhode Island, determined that the Trump administration must fully restore climate- and infrastructure-related grants awarded via the Inflation Reduction Act and bipartisan infrastructure law.

Meanwhile a federal judge in Washington, D.C., ruled that the U.S. EPA must immediately release at least some of the $20 billion in climate grants from the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin failed to prove his claims of “waste, fraud, and abuse” in the issuance of the “green bank” funds, the judge determined. The EPA quickly appealed the ruling, and a higher court once again paused funding dispersals while it hears the case.

Several judges had previously ordered IRA and infrastructure law funds to be released, but local and state entities reported that millions of dollars in awards, including for electric school buses, remained inaccessible. 

In the largely Black, overwhelmingly poor town of Enfield, North Carolina, Mayor Mondale Robinson sees clean energy as a path forward. The town’s residents face massive winter electric bills, in part because its housing stock is old and inefficient, and also because it buys a lot of its energy thirdhand. Canary Media’s Elizabeth Ouzts dove into Robinson’s efforts to reduce Enfield’s energy burden, which start with a solar farm and accompanying battery that could supply enough electricity for the whole town. Next up is a new substation, followed by a solar-powered community resilience center.

If these projects come to fruition, Enfield could become a model for climate-driven revitalization in similarly struggling towns — though that success depends on whether Enfield can secure the funding needed to get the job done.