On the first day of his presidency, Donald Trump declared a national energy emergency. Eighty-six days later, his administration issued a stop-work order on an already permitted and under-construction wind project off Long Island’s South Shore that is expected to power up to 500,000 New York homes.

Trump is correct in declaring that America needs more energy. But he is wrong to eliminate offshore wind from the mix. 

His administration questions the science, vetting, efficiency and efficacy of wind power. All four concerns have been assuaged repeatedly by research, public hearings and testing. Wind power is not without issues, but compared to other sources such as petroleum, nuclear and fracking, wind is the glass slipper in the Cinderella story of renewables.

The project that drew Trump’s ire, Empire Wind 1 from Norwegian energy giant Equinor, is located in the Atlantic Ocean, 15 miles southeast of Long Island. It is expected to generate as much as 810 megawatts of energy from 54 massive turbines as part of New York’s legislated goal of supplying 9 gigawatts of offshore wind power by 2035. The power will come onshore in Brooklyn and connect to the New York City grid. 

Hours before the Department of the Interior announced the halt on Empire 1, Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, who is running for reelection, held a news conference in Long Beach to demand an investigation based on unsubstantiated claims of “shortcuts” being used in the permitting process and to raise concerns about battery storage. Already, a separate proposal for an offshore wind array with the power coming ashore in Long Beach roiled that community’s politics and ended Equinor’s other project called Empire 2.

EXPEDITIOUS REVIEW

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum’s review of Empire 1 should be expeditious. At this point, offshore wind is not some unknown, unvetted technology. And Long Island has considerable experience with it. The South Fork Wind Farm has been supplying the East End with 130 megawatts of power since coming online in 2024. A second project called Sunrise Wind is under construction with its landfall at Smith Point, and is slated to deliver 924 megawatts when it powers up in 2026.

America’s energy independence shouldn’t depend on which way the political winds blow. Increasing demands for electricity in the digital age and worries about the consequences of burning fossil fuels don’t follow a four-year election cycle. The Jan. 20 executive order declaring a national emergency contradicts itself by claiming that America faces an “inadequate energy supply” when America produces nearly double the amount of oil daily as Saudi Arabia and 22% of the supply worldwide, and is a net exporter of petroleum.

Multibillion-dollar projects in the works for nearly a decade shouldn’t be halted on a whim. Trump’s decision to throttle Empire Wind 1 could undermine the future viability of renewable energy projects in America. Can the federal government be a trusted partner for such projects? Is the message that any undertaking other than fracking isn’t worth pursuing, since it could face a fickle administration averse to renewables?

Trump’s nonsensical attacks such as wind “kills all the birds” obfuscate Trump’s valid point about the dangers of energy dependence. It’s a clear and present national threat to be at the mercy of a foreign nation for energy. America’s resources — oil, natural gas, hydro, wind and solar — can collectively be utilized to shield the country from energy threats. Environmental benefits aside, eliminating wind and solar sources from our grid is strategically unwise. Renewable energy is not a quixotic ideal.

IMPACT ON NEW YORK

The sources of New York’s power supply are disparate but not diverse enough. As a state, New York is third-best nationwide for generating electricity from renewables, and per capita, New York is second-lowest nationwide in energy consumption. But New York gets more than four-fifths of its generation from Canada and other states, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

New York’s primary energy source for generating electricity, in 2022, was natural gas at 47.7%. Nuclear (22.1%) and hydropower (21.9%) are the next largest sources. Wind accounted for 3.9% and solar for 2.0%.

Nationwide, in 2022, America generated about 10.2% of its electricity from wind power.

The nation’s electricity grid should be better diversified. Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lee Zeldin acknowledged this at a Long Island Association breakfast earlier in April when he criticized some Midwest governors for suggesting that wind power would become a substitute for baseload power.

One of the reasons given for stopping Empire 1 after construction started — and putting more than 1,500 jobs at risk — was that the permitting process was “rushed through by the prior administration,” which is ridiculous considering Empire was granted its first federal permit in 2018, during Trump’s first term. The federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management posted online its Empire Wind Final Environmental Impact Statement on Sept. 15, 2023. The process of obtaining federal and state permits is rigorous and based on fact.

As we grapple with the urgency to provide more power for our energy-hungry nation, we must answer one basic question: Do we really want to retreat to the Industrial Age of pollution, or follow technology into the 21st century by expanding and improving renewable energy to power civilization with less pollution?

Denying a problem’s existence doesn’t solve it.