The Trump administration reversed its stop-work order on the $5 billion Empire Wind project off New York's Long Island, allowing construction to resume after pressure from Governor Hochul. The wind farm by Equinor will power 500,000 homes and create thousands of jobs, despite Trump's criticism of wind energy. Without offshore wind farms, New York faces electricity shortages and struggles to meet renewable energy targets. Critics suggest the stop-work order was legally questionable, with experts believing it could be deemed arbitrary and capricious in court.
Empire Wind photo
Equinor said work would now resume and still aims to complete the wind farm by 2027.
The Trump administration on May 19, 2025, allowed construction to proceed on a massive wind farm off the coast of New York's Long Island, a month after federal officials had issued a highly unusual stop-work order that had pushed the $5 billion project to the brink of collapse.
In a statement, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said she had spent weeks pressing President Trump and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to lift the government's hold on the wind farm.
The project, known as Empire Wind, is being built by the Norwegian energy giant Equinor and when finished is expected to deliver enough electricity to power 500,000 New York homes.
"After countless conversations with Equinor and White House officials, bringing labor and business to the table to emphasize the importance of this project, I'm pleased that President Trump and Secretary Burgum have agreed to lift the stop work order and allow this project to move forward," Hochul said.
When the Trump administration halted work on Empire Wind in April 2025, it stunned observers and sent shock waves through the wind industry.
Equinor had obtained all necessary permits for the project after a four-year federal environmental review, and the company had already begun laying foundations for the project's turbines on the ocean floor. Another 1,500 workers had begun constructing a marine terminal in Brooklyn.
Then, Burgum said that the permits had been rushed and ordered all work to stop immediately.
But the Trump administration, which has frequently criticized the wind industry, gave no indication of if or when the stop-work order might be lifted, the New York Times reported.
Faced with uncertainty, Equinor began warning that it might have to cancel the project, which was already 30 percent complete. The company said it had been losing $50 million every week that construction was halted, with nearly a dozen vessels sitting idle and workers on the sideline.
However, Equinor said work would now resume and still aimed to complete the wind farm by 2027.
"I would like to thank President Trump for finding a solution that saves thousands of American jobs and provides for continued investments in energy infrastructure in the U.S.," said Anders Opedal, the chief executive of Equinor. "I am grateful to Governor Hochul for her constructive collaboration with the Trump administration, without which we would not have been able to advance this project and secure energy for 500,000 homes in New York."
It was not immediately clear how Hochul persuaded the White House to lift its stop-work order.
She had emphasized to Trump that terminating the wind project would kill more than 1,000 jobs among workers from parts of New York that supported him, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke to the Times on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the governor's conversations.
In recent months, the president has stated several times his desire to see more natural gas exploration in the northeast as well as the completion of the Constitution Pipeline, which would carry gas from Pennsylvania to eastern New York, but faced opposition from environmental groups as well as New York state officials. It was canceled in 2020.
While there was no specific bargain related to the pipeline, Hochul said in a statement that "New York will work with the administration and private entities on new energy projects that meet the legal requirements under New York law."
According to the Times, those new energy projects could include pipelines.
The White House and Interior Department did not respond to the newspaper's request for comment.
Without Wind Farms, New Yorkers Could Suffer Electricity Shortages
The collapse of the project would have posed major challenges for New York, where grid operators had been counting on the construction of several new offshore wind farms to provide large quantities of electricity without producing any planet-warming emissions. To fight global warming, the state has set aggressive targets for using renewable energy but is not on track to meet those goals.
New York already has one offshore wind farm in operation, South Fork, which is capable of producing 132 megawatts (MW) of electricity, enough for roughly 70,000 homes.
Empire Wind is expected to have 816 MW of capacity, while Sunrise Wind, another project under construction off Montauk, N.Y., would produce 924 MW.
Without those wind farms, New York City and Long Island could face the risk of electricity shortages in the years ahead, with few ready alternatives, according to a recent study by Aurora Energy Research, an analytics firm.
Trump has been a critic of wind power for years, ever since he unsuccessfully tried to stop an offshore wind farm from being built in view of one of his Scottish golf courses.
On his first day in office in his second term, he signed an executive order that halted approvals of new offshore wind farms and directed Burgum to explore the possibility of "terminating or amending" any leases that had already been issued.
The Trump administration's stop-work order on Empire Wind appeared to be on shaky legal ground, experts said.
"I am not aware of any instance where a project of this sort that has gotten all its permitting has been legally halted," said Joel Eisen, a law professor at the University of Richmond. "The lack of evidence to support the decision is a strong signal that a federal court would probably find this to be an arbitrary and capricious decision."
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