The War on Wind Energy Just Suffered a Blow, Not a Defeat

On Revolution Wind, Trump fought the law and the law rolled its eyes. The judgement rendered late Monday, allowing work to resume on a wind project offshore New England, made a mockery of President Donald Trump’s legal tactics. It portends further court setbacks for him. And yet, the saga itself constitutes a kind of win for the president.

Revolution Wind, a 704 megawatt joint venture between Orsted A/S and Global Infrastructure Partners LP, was almost 90% built when the Interior Department ordered it to stop work last August. After a court quickly parried that move, the administration played the drearily familiar trump card of national security. Last month, Revolution’s license, along with those of four other offshore wind projects under construction, was suspended on the grounds that a new Defense Department assessment had found that the “rapid evolution of relevant adversary technologies” meant the turbines posed a heightened security risk to the East Coast. Regrettably, the nature of that rapid evolution was classified.