(Reuters) -President Donald Trump’s administration plans to revoke federal approval of Avangrid’s planned New England Wind project off the coast of Massachusetts, according to a court filing on Wednesday.
The legal maneuver is the latest move by U.S. authorities to stymie development of offshore wind energy, which Trump has called ugly, expensive, and unreliable. Last week, the administration also said it was reconsidering approval of SouthCoast Wind, another planned Massachusetts project.
In recent weeks, Trump has deployed a range of tactics to stop offshore wind expansion, which was a cornerstone of former President Joe Biden’s efforts to combat climate change but has struggled with soaring costs and supply chain snags. Most notably, Trump’s Interior Department late last month issued a stop-work order on the Revolution Wind project off the coast of Rhode Island, which is 80% complete.
In Wednesday’s court filing, attorneys for the Department of Justice said they would move by October 10 to vacate the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s approval of the New England Wind construction and operations plan.
The filing came in a lawsuit brought earlier this year in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia by local groups and individuals opposed to offshore wind development. The suit alleges the government violated federal environmental laws by approving the project.
Avangrid, which is owned by Spanish power company Iberdrola, declined to comment. Iberdrola officials also declined to comment.
New England Wind was approved by Biden’s administration in 2024. The project area, located 30 miles (48 km) south of Barnstable, Massachusetts, was divided into two leases last year, called New England 1 and New England Wind 2. Once built, they were expected to be able to produce enough electricity to power 900,000 homes.
New England Wind 1 was expected to begin construction this year and enter service in 2029, Avangrid said last year.
“The federal agencies are now recognizing what Plaintiffs have long argued – that the project’s approvals are fatally flawed and violate numerous environmental statutes,” said Thomas Stavola Jr., an attorney for the lead plaintiffs, ACK for Whales, a group based on the island of Nantucket, in a statement.
(Reporting by Nichola Groom in Los Angeles and Laila Kearney in New York; Editing by David Gregorio and Rod Nickel)
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