When Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont talked to President Donald Trump about Connecticut's offshore wind projects, the president said they had the same priority: more energy, lower electricity prices.
"Obviously, the president is very skeptical about wind going forward, so I understood they probably weren't going to be permitting anything else," Lamont said in a phone interview with The Bond Buyer.
Lamont said he was assured in conversations with the Trump's departments of Interior and Energy that Revolution Wind, a project off the coasts of Rhode Island and Connecticut that's planned to power 350,000 homes starting next year, was safe.
Then Trump's administration escalated its war on offshore wind agreements, pulling hundreds of thousands of dollars of funding, canceling lease auctions and revoking permits. At the end of August, Revolution Wind, 80% complete, received a stop work order from the Interior department's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.
A halt to offshore wind would pour billions of dollars of investments down the drain, make it more difficult for states to meet the demands for energy, and add a new layer of uncertainty into all infrastructure investments.
Lamont said it's emblematic of attempts to work with the Trump administration.
"Every day there's another surprise," Lamont said.
Connecticut has been working to build Revolution Wind since Trump's first term, Lamont said. The project was formally approved in 2023 after a nine-year process, according to the joint venture of Danish renewable energy infrastructure specialists Ørsted and a consortium led by Skyborn Renewables.
Today, construction on Revolution Wind is 80% complete, the developers say. Forty-five of the 65
The letter from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management that issued the stop-work order came "with no notice at all," Lamont said. The letter said the project must halt while BOEM ensures compliance with regulations.
"BOEM is seeking to address concerns related to the protection of national security interests of the United States and prevention of interference with reasonable uses of the exclusive economic zone, the high seas, and the territorial seas," BOEM Acting Director Matthew Giacona wrote, "
"No one knows what that means," Lamont said.
Any national security concerns were resolved by BOEM and the Department of Defense during the project's permitting process, Connecticut Attorney General William Tong
Tong and Rhode Island's attorney general are suing to restart Revolution Wind. Ørsted and Skyborn Renewables
In April, Trump issued a stop-work order for the Empire Wind project in New York. Gov. Kathy Hochul met with the president and construction was permitted to resume. Reportedly the Trump administration said the governor "caved" by
Lamont said he's "absolutely" willing to strike a similar deal, but his communications with the Trump administration have not presented an opportunity.
"Tell me what you're looking for," Lamont said. "I don't know if there is an ask, and what it is. And I've talked to everybody down there, and they were not sure what the ask is, and most of them weren't even aware that this had happened at all."
The Biden administration tried to
His's crusade against wind power started on the first day of his presidency. He issued executive orders taking aim at wind power and boosting coal and natural gas. He halted all permitting for new offshore projects and, in July,
Last month, Trump's Transportation Department
The administration also withdrew a $716 million loan guarantee for an offshore wind project
In the last week, the Trump administration told courts it's planning to revoke permits for wind farms off the coasts of
There are four remaining offshore wind projects currently under construction, and Trump is considering issuing stop-work orders for those projects, the
The five projects currently under construction represent more than $100 billion of investments from the companies building them, the Post reported. And the canceled projects mean a loss of similar investment for their regions; the first stages of the Massachusetts project would have created more than 4,400 jobs and bring more than $3 billion in investments to the local economy.
The loss of these projects is also a blow to energy affordability, especially in Northeast states with
"A lot of our energy cost is related to peak pricing spikes," Lamont said. "So it's a really cold day in January, it's a hot day in July … wind can help mitigate that. So we would definitely be saving the people money by this time next year if we had it in place, but we won't."
Moreover, stopping work on an ongoing project is costly. Ørsted has a month-to-month contract on some of the construction equipment for Revolution Wind, Lamont said.
"They've got to decide whether they keep that going, much longer [can] they keep that going," Lamont said. "Of course, if you lose the contract on the installation vessel, everything gets delayed many months."
The precedent that the federal government can cancel projects years into construction will make it harder to build infrastructure, Lamont said.
"If you can't honor a contract, people are going to be very loath to enter into a contract," Lamont said.
That reluctance applies to both private partners and governors.
"I talked to the natural gas guys," Lamont said, "and said, 'Look, if a contract is not a contract, why would I want to start in place a big investment for natural gas in New England, knowing that the next administration could tear it up?"
