U.S. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum on Wednesday directed the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management to halt construction on Empire Wind 1, a wind farm project off the coast of Long Island that would have provided energy to 500,000 New York homes.
Burgum on X said the former administration "rushed through its approval without sufficient analysis."
Empire Wind 1 is an offshore wind energy project run by Equinor, a Norwegian energy company. The company broke ground in June on the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal, a 73-acre offshore wind hub in Sunset Park that was planned to be the pre-assembly site for turbine components and would house a substation to connect 810 MW of wind power directly into the New York City grid.
The development of the Sunset Park hub already employed over 1,000 union members.
Equinor on Wednesday told the Associated Press it had just received a notification from BOEM and it will engage directly with the agency and the Interior Department to understand the questions raised about the permits. A spokesperson declined to comment on the fate of the project, which is located southeast of Long Island, New York.
In his first day in office, President Donald Trump signed an executive order temporarily halting offshore wind lease sales in federal waters and pausing approvals, permits and loans for all wind projects.
"This fully federally permitted project has already put shovels in the ground before the President’s executive orders—it’s exactly the type of bipartisan energy solution we should be working on," said Governor Kathy Hochul. “I will not allow this federal overreach to stand. I will fight this every step of the way to protect union jobs, affordable energy and New York’s economic future.”
State Senator Andrew Gounardes said the Interior Department's move was "an attack on New York’s energy sovereignty."
“The Trump Administration’s decision to revoke approval for Empire Wind 1 is a slap in the face to New Yorkers," he said in a statement. "Empire Wind 1 isn’t just about power generation—it’s about powering our economy with thousands of good-paying union jobs, apprenticeships for our young workers and billions in economic investment in neighborhoods like Sunset Park and Red Hook."
