The coming months could be make-or-break for green energy on Long Island.

With work on two large offshore wind farms linked to the Island intensifying this spring, the Trump administration’s scrutiny of wind power continued with the unexpected revoking of a crucial permit for a fully green-lighted project in southern New Jersey last week.

Meanwhile, as the Propel New York project prepares to start work on the 90-mile cable project chiefly on Long Island next year, a spokesman for the Army Corps of Engineers told Newsday his agency is scrutinizing the $3 billion-plus plan in light of two Trump administration executive orders, including one critical of wind energy.

An Army Corps permit is one of several critical ones needed to advance the project, which is intended to bolster high-voltage transmission lines through Nassau County, New York City and Westchester County for an influx of wind energy.

At the same time, federal tax credits that have long provided the main impetus for Long Island’s leading position in solar power, with nearly 1 in 10 homes here bearing rooftop solar panels, are facing new scrutiny as Congress considers a bill that could eliminate the 30% credits.

“Environmentalists who have fought for years for offshore wind have a real reason to be very concerned about what this administration will do,” said Neal Lewis, executive director of the Sustainability Institute at Molloy University and a longtime wind-energy advocate.

Trump is “going to use his powers in ways that can really devastate the industry for years to come … There’s an element of holding your breath and continuing to keep fighting,” he said.

Trump has long denigrated green energy initiatives, and wind energy in particular, as costly, unsightly and inefficient while throwing deeper government support for fossil fuel and nuclear energy.

All the projects slated for Long Island remain in place for now and are continuing apace, with work on some appearing to take on a level of urgency.

Activity at Smith Point County Park, for instance, reached a fever pitch last week as hundreds of workers converged to finish the 17-mile land-based cable for Sunrise Wind. The 924-megawatt project, by Denmark-based Orsted, will deliver all its energy to a vast new receiver station in Holbrook, where separate crews are upgrading the substation and another company is at work on a 110-megawatt battery to store its power.

Parking lots at the Smith Point Marina and the beach park are crowded with supplies, fleets of trucks and lines of equipment, some moved around on barges — all mobilized to finish the land-based work before offshore cables and turbine towers are installed.

A barge for cable-pulling operations sits just off shore. The land-based construction is on schedule for completion before the summer beach season on Memorial Day.

The heightened work activity comes as the Environmental Protection Agency earlier this month withdrew a previously issued pollution permit for the fully permitted Atlantic Shores wind farm in southern New Jersey, one scheduled to start construction this year amid considerable local opposition.

Atlantic Shores, in a statement last week, said it was “disappointed by the EPA’s decision to pull back its fully executed permit as regulatory certainty is critical to deploying major energy projects.” The project was to be 10 to 20 miles from the New Jersey shoreline.

EPA spokesman Elias Rodriguez, in an email, pointed to the Trump administration’s memorandum on wind energy in explaining the move, but declined to say whether a similar fate could await other offshore projects that also have all their permits.

He noted the president’s order “directs an immediate review of federal wind leasing and permitting practices and provides that the heads of various executive department agencies, including the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, shall not issue new or renewed approvals, rights of way, permits, leases, or loans for onshore or offshore wind projects pending the completion of a comprehensive assessment and review of federal wind leasing and permitting practices.”

Another wind project that will be built off the coast of Long Beach, and which has already begun extensive land-based operations, is Norway-based Equinor’s Empire Wind, for which spokesman David Schoetz said “marine activities are scheduled to begin in spring 2025.”

In an emailed statement, Equinor noted it has “received all necessary federal permits for offshore construction and will continue to comply with the requirements of these permits.”

The project has already begun work at South Brooklyn Marine Terminal, including for a new operations and maintenance facility and components for a transformer. The project will rely on an undersea cable from a planned wind-array 15 miles from Long Beach, where some residents remain staunchly opposed to it. One of them, Christina Kramer of Protect Our Coast Long Island, NY, said on Wednesday the group has filed numerous objections to the project with federal agencies. “We want a new federal review,” she said.

Rodriguez of EPA noted that Empire Wind’s EPA permit was issued in February 2024 and that “no other air permit is required from EPA.”

As for Sunrise Wind, spokeswoman Meaghan Wims, in an email, said the company was “closely monitoring federal policy and its implementation.” The project is on target to begin producing energy in 2027, she said. 

Wims declined to say how much Sunrise Wind is costing to build or to discuss the EPA and its yanked permit for Atlantic Shores.

An EPA spokeswoman said there are no pending Sunrise Wind appeals before the board.

As questions swirl about what Washington will do next on wind, another big project preparing to provide a huge boost to the offshore wind industry, Propel NY Energy, also could be facing headwinds.

In an email response to Newsday about the 90-mile high-voltage project from Nassau to Westchester, a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers spokesman said: “The Army Corps of Engineers is evaluating the next steps for the proposal pursuant to the direction provided by the administration’s executive orders and memorandum.” Asked which orders specifically, the spokesman, James D’Ambrosio, pointed to Trump’s orders declaring a National Energy Emergency and the second relating to offshore wind leasing and permitting.

D’Ambrosio said the agency has acknowledged to Propel that its application “has been received and is under review.”

Susan Craig, a spokeswoman for the New York Power Authority, which is leading the effort with private developers at New York Transco, said, Propel is “continuing the permitting process, working with all regulators and stakeholders including the Army Corps of Engineers and working toward a mid-2026 construction start.”

Green energy advocates say developers are right to be concerned about the potential for delays and other impediments to their projects.

“If you are not fighting against Trump’s agenda, you are part of it,” said Ryan Madden, energy activist for the Long Island Progressive Coalition, which rallied with other groups outside the Hauppauge office of Gov. Kathy Hochul last week to spur her to push back harder against Trump’s moves.

It’s not just wind-farm related projects that green-energy advocates are concerned about. Earlier this month, a contingent of Republican congressmen led by Rep. Andrew Garbarino, of Bayport, wrote a letter to the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, requesting that a pending House spending bill keep “on our current path to energy dominance amid efforts to repeal or reform current energy tax credits.” The federal government currently offers generous tax credits for solar energy installations that can cut one-third or more from the cost of the $20,000-plus projects. Tax credits also apply to heat pumps, wind farms, batteries and other renewable energy.

The letter doesn’t mention solar energy or even green-energy projects generally, but asserted that any “premature” phaseout of the credits could impact developer financing of projects already planned.

David Schieren, chief executive of Empower Solar in Island Park and chair of the New York Solar Energy Industry Association, a trade group, said loss of the tax credits would “reduce demand, there’s no escaping that fact.” And its force would be multiplied by anticipated tariffs on solar panels and high interest rates that have already sharply cut back sales.

Jack Pratt, senior political director of the activist group Environmental Defense Fund, noted the tax credits have been in place since before the prior Trump administration renewed them in his first term and said the credits are “on the table” in a bill expected to be drawn up before the month’s end. The committee chair “wants to repeal everything, but I feel like there’s a better chance” of saving them than there was three months ago.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) says he’ll fight.

“It makes zero sense that congressional GOP leaders want to roll back the 30% investment tax credit for solar, wind, heat pumps,” Schumer spokesman Angelo Roefaro said in an email, adding that losing the credits would “hammer consumers with higher energy prices and derail vital projects that boost Long Island’s economy and the environment.”

Mark Harrington, a Newsday reporter since 1999, covers energy, wineries, Indian affairs and fisheries.