A federal court judge is allowing the Trump administration to reconsider a major federal permit that was granted to a Massachusetts offshore wind farm days before the president's inauguration.
Developer SouthCoast Wind said Wednesday it's assessing the decision and next steps, including the pursuit of legal remedies. SouthCoast Wind is a project planned for federal waters about 23 miles (37 kilometers) south of Nantucket, with as many as 141 turbines to power about 840,000 homes in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Construction has not yet begun.
The Trump administration is using executive orders, agency actions and the courts to try to stop the development of offshore wind, an industry and technology that President Donald Trump has attacked as “ugly” and unreliable compared to fossil fuels such as coal and natural gas.
Massachusetts has led in offshore wind to meet its goals for clean energy and demand for electricity. The state's governor said the region needs this power.
“There is absolutely no need for the Trump administration to reopen permitting processes and deny jobs, investment and energy to the states,” Gov. Maura Healey said in a statement.
Nantucket sued the Interior Department in March. The town asked a U.S. District Court judge in Washington to set aside the federal government's approvals to construct the wind farm, arguing that it will damage the town's character, community and tourism economy. However, Nantucket’s lawsuit does not aim to cancel the project, said Greg Werkheiser, of Cultural Heritage Partners, counsel to the town. Rather, it seeks to ensure that the federal government follows laws that require harm from such projects to be properly documented and mitigated, which Nantucket alleges were ignored in the rush to get the project permitted before the Trump administration took office.
If those laws are weakened or ignored for clean energy projects, they will be broken for fossil fuel ones as well, Werkheiser added.
The federal defendants seeking to revoke approval of the project’s "construction and operations plan." It was the last major federal permit the project needs before it can start putting turbines in the water. The Interior Department said the approval may not have fully complied with the law and may have failed to account for all the project's impacts.
Judge Tanya Chutkan ordered Tuesday that the permit be remanded to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, or BOEM, for reconsideration. She wrote that it was “in the interest of judicial economy,” or saving time and resources, since Nantucket supports reconsideration, and the developer wouldn't “suffer significant and immediate hardship.”
Nantucket said the court’s ruling affirms its longstanding position that the federal government must take a hard look at potential flaws in the environmental and cultural analysis underpinning offshore wind permitting decisions.
SouthCoast Wind said it has invested over $600 million in development and permitting, including lease fee payments to the federal government, since acquiring the lease during the first Trump administration. CEO Michael Brown said they continue to believe in the value this project brings to the region, by providing domestic energy and supporting well-paying union jobs.
BOEM approved SouthCoast’s operations plan on Jan. 17, three days before Trump’s second term began.
Trump has been , particularly offshore wind, and . His administration has , revoked wind energy permits and , for new offshore wind development and stopped for a dozen offshore wind projects. The moves are a complete reversal from the Biden administration.
In another lawsuit, a that a nearly complete offshore wind project halted by the administration could resume, dealing Trump a setback. Revolution Wind is supposed to be Rhode Island’s and Connecticut’s first large offshore wind farm, capable of supplying power to more than 350,000 homes, about 2.5% of the region’s electricity needs.
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AP Writer Michael Casey in Boston contributed to this report.
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