Back to work Trump admin lifts hold on offshore wind farm, doesn’t explain why Reasons for the hold were never backed up, and nobody's explaining why it ended. John Timmer – May 20, 2025 1:03 pm | 77 Credit: glegorly Credit: glegorly Story text Size Small Standard Large Width * Standard Wide Links Standard Orange * Subscribers only   Learn more On Monday, the developer of a large offshore wind farm being built off the coast of New York announced that the federal government had lifted a hold it had placed on the project roughly a month ago. The entire process has been shrouded in mystery. The government never fully enunciated its justification for the hold and hasn't yet commented on the fact that it had been lifted, although there is some hint that it was coupled to a reconsideration of a cancelled natural gas pipeline. Empire Wind is a large project being built off the southeast shore of Long Island by Equinor, a Norwegian energy company. The first of two phases, Empire Wind 1, will have an 800 MW capacity and has already received permitting and environmental approval. Equinor had started construction of the foundations for the towers that would hold the wind turbines and onshore facilities that would support this and future offshore projects. All that changed in mid-April when Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum announced via a social media post that the approval for Empire Wind had been rushed and his department would be reviewing it. A Fox News article published a few days later suggests that a review by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration "found the Empire Wind approval process relied on rushed, outdated, and incomplete scientific and environmental analysis." But nobody else has indicated that any such report exists, despite requests from the press. Meanwhile, Equinor was given no indication of how long the project would be on hold, even as it took on large expenses due to its idled workers and equipment. On Monday, however, the company announced that the hold had been lifted and construction would resume. But as with the hold itself, the reasons for its end remain mysterious. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management page for the project was only updated with a new letter on Tuesday. That letter indicates a review of its approval is ongoing, but construction can resume during the review. The Department of the Interior has not addressed the change and has not responded to a request for comment. A post by Interior Secretary Burgum doesn't mention Empire Wind but does suggest the governor of New York will approve a pipeline: "I am encouraged by Governor Hochul’s comments about her willingness to move forward on critical pipeline capacity." That suggests there was a deal that allowed Empire Wind to resume construction in return for a pipeline for fossil fuels. The New York Times suggests that this is a reference to the proposed Constitution Pipeline, which was planned to move natural gas from Pennsylvania to eastern New York but was cancelled in 2020 due to state opposition. However, Governor Kathy Hochul has not commented about a willingness to move forward with any pipelines. Instead, Hochul's statement on Empire Wind is very vague, saying that she "reaffirmed that New York will work with the Administration and private entities on new energy projects that meet the legal requirements under New York law." So while it's good news that construction on Empire Wind has restarted, the whole process has been problematic, driven by apparently arbitrary decisions that the government has refused to justify. John Timmer Senior Science Editor John Timmer Senior Science Editor John is Ars Technica's science editor. He has a Bachelor of Arts in Biochemistry from Columbia University, and a Ph.D. in Molecular and Cell Biology from the University of California, Berkeley. When physically separated from his keyboard, he tends to seek out a bicycle, or a scenic location for communing with his hiking boots. 77 Comments