Federal judge allows construction to resume on Revolution Wind off Rhode Island

A federal judge on Monday struck down the Interior Department’s suspension of work on Revolution Wind, ruling that construction on the $6.2 billion offshore project off the coast of Rhode Island could resume. Judge Royce Lamberth of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia said the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s suspension order was “arbitrary and capricious” and violated federal law, finding the agency had not adequately explained how the project posed security risks or why halting construction would address them.

He said in court that “purportedly new classified information does not constitute a sufficient explanation” for stopping work. Orsted, the Danish company building Revolution Wind, said it would resume construction “as soon as possible.” The project is roughly 87 percent complete, with 58 of 65 turbines installed, and had been scheduled to be fully operational by the second half of this year, delivering power to more than 350,000 homes and businesses in Connecticut and Rhode Island by year’s end.

Lawyers for Orsted told the court the suspension was costing at least $1.44 million per day and that an earlier stop-work order had cost about $100 million; the Justice Department defended its handling of classified materials, saying protecting against the new national security risk outlined in the classified materials outweighs any alleged irreparable harm to developers.

The suspension order, issued last month by the Trump administration and again on Dec.

Key Topics

Politics, Revolution Wind, Orsted, Royce Lamberth, Boem, Rhode Island