A coalition of 18 attorneys general, led by Delaware Attorney General Kathy Jennings, won a lawsuit overturning the Trump Administration’s January freeze on all federal permitting for wind energy projects. On December 7th, a federal judge in Massachusetts vacated the freeze, calling it arbitrary, capricious, and unlawful. The coalition argued the halt disrupted states’ energy planning and clean-energy goals and violated federal permitting laws. Jennings is also involved in a related case over the cancellation of an offshore wind project off Delaware and Maryland. Ocean City Mayor Rick Meehan responded that the ruling does not affect the already-approved US Wind project and questioned the use of Maryland taxpayer funds in the lawsuit, reiterating concerns about offshore wind’s cost and impact on the state’s coastline.
Statements and Other Information:
“It is almost unbelievable that this Administration would choose to make energy more expensive for Americans during an affordability crisis, but that’s exactly what they did,” said Attorney General Kathy Jennings. “Their actions were bad for consumers, bad for the environment, and plainly against the law. I’m thrilled that we stopped them in their tracks.”
AG Jennings was joined in this matter the attorneys general of Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Washington.
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“Although we are disappointed with the ruling by the US District Court of Massachusetts on President Trump’s order to stop new permits and approvals for offshore wind projects, the ruling does not impact the US Wind Project because that project already had Federal Approval. In fact, we question why Attorney General Anthony Brown felt the need to spend Maryland Taxpayer dollars on this lawsuit at all.
Instead of working to promote costly and unreliable offshore wind projects that require massive state subsidies at the expense of destroying Maryland’s coastline, we would encourage Attorney General Anthony Brown to focus on working toward developing responsible, cost-effective energy solutions that benefit Marylanders…. not foreign corporations and hedge funds.”
– Ocean City Mayor Rick Meehan
