The US states of Connecticut and Rhode Island have filed suit over the Trump administration’s shutdown of Orsted’s 704MW Revolution Wind project.
In a Thursday press conference Connecticut Attorney General William Tong said: “This an utterly unlawful, baseless, and frankly senseless and stupid stop-work worder.
“That’s why we’re in federal court today along with our partners in Rhode Island.”
Connecticut is set to procure 304MW from the project, while Rhode Island will purchase the other 400MW of capacity from the project.
Tong framed President Donald Trump’s actions against the offshore wind industry as a “war on ratepayers”, and said that his state is relying on the power generation from Revolution Wind for the state’s electricity mix.
“We need this power, we need generation. This was a real, concrete answer that was ready to come online very soon,” Tong said.
The suit names Trump, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, the Department of the Interior, and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management as defendants.
The lawsuit from Connecticut and Rhode Island joins a number of active challenges related to Trump’s attack on the offshore sector, including a challenge from 17 states and the District of Columbia over the President’s January executive order, as well as Orsted’s own lawsuit against the Revolution Wind shutdown filed earlier this week.