States sue Trump over ‘existential threat’ to wind energy

The District of Columbia and 17 states —  including New York, Arizona, Massachusetts, California, Colorado, and Illinois — sued the Trump administration Monday over its attempts to stop wind energy developments across the US. 

The states argue that by signing a presidential memorandum on his first day in office that halted federal approvals for wind energy projects, President Trump impeded their ability to reduce pollution and provide residents with cheap electricity. Billions of dollars of investments they’ve made in infrastructure, workforce development, and supply chains for wind energy are at risk, they contend.

“This administration is devastating one of our nation’s fastest-growing sources of clean, reliable, and affordable energy,” New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a press release.

The suit claims that Trump has attacked wind energy in an “arbitrary and capricious” way. It invokes the Administrative Procedure Act that allows courts to deem federal agency actions unlawful if they’re found to be “arbitrary” and “capricious.”

On his first day, Trump also declared a so-called “national energy emergency” in an executive order to promote the development of fossil fuel projects. “These and numerous other executive actions similarly encouraged domestic energy development—that is, all but wind and other renewable energy,” the complaint says. 

The Trump administration, meanwhile, is framing the lawsuit as a partisan attack. “Instead of working with President Trump to unleash American energy and lower prices for American families, Democrat Attorneys General are using lawfare to stop the President’s popular energy agenda,” White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers said in an email to The Verge. “Americans in blue states should not have to pay the price of the Democrats’ radical climate agenda.”

Trump’s election campaign received more than $75 million in contributions from oil and gas interests. The president has also continued to spread misinformation that falsely links offshore wind projects to whale deaths without evidence. 

The states also claim that the Trump administration is abruptly reversing longstanding policy after federal agencies have already assessed the potential benefits and risks of wind energy projects. Trump’s presidential memorandum calls for a new review of federal permitting processes and the purported environmental and economic “necessity of terminating or amending any existing wind energy leases.” The plaintiffs allege that the Trump administration is failing to follow existing environmental rules regulating industry, including the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act.

In April, the Trump administration escalated its fight against windmills by ordering the developer of a major project off the coast of New York to stop construction, even though the project already had federal and state approvals in place. The company, Equinor, said in an earnings call last week that it’s considering taking legal action.

“The order to halt work now is unprecedented and in our view unlawful. This is a question of the rights and obligations granted under legally issued permits, and security of investments based on valid approvals,” Anders Opedal, president and CEO of Equinor ASA, said in an April 29 press release.

Wind is the biggest source of clean energy in the US, providing more than 20 percent of the country’s electricity. Wind and solar energy are generally cheaper new sources of electricity than fossil fuels. 

The complaint filed today in a Massachusetts district court calls the president’s directive an “existential threat” to the industry that has already “stopped most wind-energy development in its tracks.”