Danish wind giant sues US government over project halt

Danish energy group Orsted has filed a lawsuit seeking to prevent the US government from blocking the construction of one of its wind farms that was nearing completion.

The lawsuit, filed Thursday, comes after President Donald Trump's administration ordered a halt to work on the massive Revolution Wind project off the coast of Rhode Island, despite it being about 80 percent complete with 45 of 65 planned turbines already installed.

Trump, who has repeatedly criticized wind energy, has rattled off a series of orders blocking similar climate-friendly wind power projects since returning to office.

The attorneys general of the Democratic-leaning states of Connecticut and Rhode Island said in a statement Thursday they would separately sue the government in Rhode Island federal court to "overturn the baseless stop work order."

The Revolution Wind project freeze "is invalid and must be set aside because it was issued without statutory authority, in violation of agency regulations and procedures," Orsted and its partner Skyborn Renewables argued in their lawsuit, obtained by AFP.

The companies called the decision "arbitrary and capricious" and said they have already invested billions of dollars in the project, which began construction last year after receiving all necessary federal permits.

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The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) justified the suspension citing "concerns related to the protection of national security interests in the United States", according to director Matthew Giacona.

Since returning to the White House in January, Trump signed executive orders freezing permits and federal loans for both offshore and onshore wind projects nationwide.

"It destroys everything, it looks terrible, it's a very expensive form of energy -- and we're not doing the wind, we're going back to fossil fuel," Trump said last month.

The US Commerce Department launched in August a national security investigation into imports of wind turbines and their components, opening up the imports of components to tariffs.

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