President Donald Trump’s energy chief said there are active discussions in the administration about the future of an offshore wind farm being constructed off the coast of Rhode Island by Denmark’s Orsted A/S, where work was recently halted.
U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright
“That’s a very active dialogue in the administration,” Energy Secretary Chris Wright said when asked if anything could be done to allow work to resume. Earlier this year, the Trump administration lifted a similar stop-work order for a wind farm being built near New York after reaching an agreement with the state’s governor over new energy projects.
“Offshore wind has moved fast. It’s got a lot of problems, both environmental and economic — and they are being very actively worked and discussed,” Wright told reporters after giving remarks at an event held by the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington.
The talks come amid a broader administration review of all offshore wind projects in the U.S. The Trump administration has launched an unprecedented attack on the nascent industry, threatening multi-billion dollar projects and hundreds of jobs. So far, stop-work orders and yanked permits — as well as the threats of them — have disrupted plans for at least four wind projects off the US East Coast this year.
Orsted has said its Revolution Wind farm, co-owned by Global Infrastructure Partners, was 80% completed before it received a stop-work order from the Interior Department in August. This week, Rhode Island, Connecticut and the Orsted wind farm venture sued the Trump administration in an effort to revive construction of the project.
See also: NOIA speaks out after Trump halts nearly complete Revolution Wind project
In April, Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum halted work on Equinor ASA’s $5 billion Empire Wind farm off the coast of New York, but then reversed the decision a month later after the administration reached a deal with New York Governor Kathy Hochul to open the way for new gas pipelines to be built in the state.
Some analysts have said non-energy factors could be at play in discussion to resume the Revolution Wind project. The action by the governors of Rhode Island and Connecticut to sue the Trump administration over a move to block Planned Parenthood from receiving Medicaid funding has been cited.
“We would be surprised if the White House plans to run the alleged blades-for-pipes play again,” ClearView Energy Partners LLC said in an Aug. 25 note.
Wright, asked during the event about concerns over investors who have sunk billions into wind farms, said “that’s exactly the hard dialogues going on right now,” adding that he understands the concern.
“But there’s a flip side to that,” he said. “There is massive environmental and economic opposition to offshore wind, and this is going to be sorted out.”
