The federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management will reconsider its construction and operations plan for Equinor’s planned Empire Wind 2 project off New York, government lawyers told a federal court that’s hearing a legal challenge from project opponents.
The Trump administration already issued a stop-work order in mid-April against Equinor’s 816-MW Empire Wind 1 project, then allowed construction to resume a month later. A lawsuit was brought in July by a coalition of project opponents including beachfront residents and commercial fishermen, and the government’s new Oct. 1 filing could intervene in the case.
“This is a major admission by the federal government that its prior approval of Empire Wind 2 cannot stand as is,” said Bob Stern, president of the activist group Save Long Beach Island, plaintiffs in the civil suit along with Protect Our Coast LINY. “It strengthens the argument for a pause to the Empire Wind 1 project. The process and methods for presenting impacts were the same for both projects. If Project 2 has legal and scientific flaws, so has Project 1.”
The second phase planned as Empire Wind 2 would construct up to 90 turbines with a nameplate power rating of 1,260 megawatts, under the construction and operations planned approved by BOEM during the Biden administration.
The court filing is the Trump administration’s latest legal sortie against wind power ventures. Mixed results include the administration’s blockade of new permits – and reversals, as when a court grant a preliminary injunction allowing Ørsted’s Revolution Wind project to resume construction.
Equinor has said it is unlikely to pursue Empire 2, considering the industry’s financial challenges and hostile political and legal situation in U.S. waters.
The administration’s new filing is consistent with its drive to short-circuit Biden-era permits wherever possible. In mid-September the Interior Department asked a federal court in Maryland to cancel federal permits for the US Wind project off Ocean City, Md., asserting the Biden administration overstepped legal authority in 2024 with allowing the developers’ plan to move forward.
