A coalition of 18 U.S. State Attorneys General, led by New York AG Letitia James announced that they have filed a lawsuit against the Trump Administration, aimed at blocking the federal government’s move to freeze new wind energy developments across the country.

The suit follows a Presidential Memorandum signed by Trump on his first day in office, indefinitely halting all federal approvals for wind energy projects. Since issuing the directive, all federal permitting and approval activities have stopped.

More recently, the U.S. Department of the Interior announced an order to stop construction activities on the Empire Wind project, a large-scale offshore wind project off the coast of New York. The project, anticipated to power 500,000 homes with renewable energy, was already under construction and had been expected to reach commercial operation in 2027.

Describing the Trump administration’s moves to block wind energy development as “arbitrary and capricious,” the suit argues that the President is acting outside of his legal authority, and that halting wind energy development will harm the states’ ability to provide “reliable, diversified, and affordable sources of energy” to their residents, and to meet their responsibilities to meet growing demand for electricity while mitigating climate harms and pollution caused by fossil fuels. The suit notes that the President’s directive was issued without reasoned explanation for the halt, and that the government has not offered justification for changing “longstanding federal policy supporting the development of wind energy.”

The AGs also noted that the moves contradict years of bipartisan support for offshore and onshore wind energy projects – including during Trump’s first term – and they contradict the President’s declaration of a “national energy emergency,” calling for an expansion of domestic energy production.

Other states joining the law suit included Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington, and the District of Columbia.

New York AG James said:

“This administration is devastating one of our nation’s fastest-growing sources of clean, reliable, and affordable energy. This arbitrary and unnecessary directive threatens the loss of thousands of good-paying jobs and billions in investments, and it is delaying our transition away from the fossil fuels that harm our health and our planet.”