A US court has declared President Donald Trump’s restriction on granting new wind energy permits to be “unlawful. Plans for numerous ongoing projects in the US were thrown into disarray when the president signed an executive order in January that froze government clearance of pending offshore and onshore wind permits.
The government was sued by about 17 states and a sustainable energy organization based in New York, partly because of the stop-work order placed on the Empire Wind 1 project, a massive wind farm off the coast of New York that would power 500,000 households. Trump’s order was declared “arbitrary and capricious and contrary to law” by Massachusetts district court judge Patti B. Saris on Monday.
Permit approvals were halted while the administration carried out a broader review of approval procedures, according to Judge Saris’ ruling, since federal agencies had failed to “provide a reasoned explanation for the change” and justification for the new policy.
Federal agencies could not simply refuse to evaluate applications “altogether, for an unspecified time, pending the completion of a wide-ranging assessment with no anticipated end date according to her letter. Letitia James, the attorney general of New York, called the court’s decision “a big victory in our fight to keep tackling the climate crisis” in a social media post.
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