WASHINGTON — A federal judge ruled Monday that a nearly complete offshore wind project halted by the Trump administration can resume, dealing the president a setback in his ongoing effort to restrict the fledgling industry.

Work on the Revolution Wind project for Rhode Island and Connecticut was paused Aug. 22, when the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management issued a stop-work order for what it said were national security concerns. The Interior Department agency did not specify those concerns at the time. Both the developer and the two states sued in federal courts.

Danish energy company Orsted and its joint venture partner, Skyborn Renewables, sought a preliminary injunction in U.S. District Court that would allow them to move the project forward.

At a hearing Monday, Judge Royce Lamberth said he considered how Revolution Wind has relied on its federal approval, the delays are costing $2.3 million per day and if the project can’t meet deadlines, the entire enterprise could collapse. After December, the specialized ship needed to complete the project won’t be available until at least 2028, he said. More than 1,000 people have been working on the wind farm, which is 80 percent complete.

“There is no question in my mind of irreparable harm to the plaintiffs,” Lamberth said, as he granted the motion for the preliminary injunction. In his written ruling, he said Revolution Wind had “demonstrated likelihood of success on the merits” of its claim, adding that granting the injunction is in the public interest.

Interior Department spokeswoman Elizabeth Peace said the ruling means Revolution Wind “will be able to resume construction” while the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management “continues its investigation into possible impacts by the project to national security and prevention of other uses on the Outer Continental Shelf.”

The administration said in a court filing this month that while BOEM approved the wind farm, it stipulated that the developer continue to work with the Defense Department to mitigate national security concerns. It said the Interior Department, to date, has not received any information that these concerns have been addressed.

Orsted said Monday that construction will resume as soon as possible, and it will continue to seek to work collaboratively with the administration.

Nancy Pyne of the Sierra Club said the court ruling “reaffirms that Donald Trump and his administration’s attacks on clean energy are not only reckless and harmful to our communities, but they are also illegal.” Trump is trying to “kneecap” renewable energy “in favor of dirty and expensive fossil fuels,” she said.

White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said Trump was elected with a mandate to “restore our country’s energy dominance — which includes prioritizing the most effective and reliable tools to power our country. This will not be the final say on the matter.”

On the campaign trail, Trump vowed to end the offshore wind industry as soon as he returned to the White House. He has said he wants to boost production of fossil fuels such as oil, natural gas and coal for the U.S. to have the lowest-cost energy and electricity of any nation in the world.

The Trump administration has stopped construction on major offshore wind farms, revoked wind energy permits and paused permitting, canceled plans to use large areas of federal waters for new offshore wind development, and stopped $679 million in federal funding for a dozen offshore wind projects.

Last week, the administration moved to block a separate Massachusetts offshore wind farm. That was just days after the Interior Department asked a federal judge in Baltimore to cancel previous approval for construction of an offshore wind project in Maryland.

Revolution Wind is supposed to be Rhode Island’s and Connecticut’s first large offshore wind farm — capable of supplying power to more than 350,000 homes. The complex is expected to meet about 2.5 percent of the region’s electricity needs.

Connecticut Attorney General William Tong and Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha, both Democrats, called the judge’s ruling a major win for workers and families, who need the project to stay on track so it can start to drive down unaffordable energy bills.

Connecticut Rep. Joe Courtney, a Democrat, said a multibillion-dollar project that is 80 percent complete and was fully permitted with input from the Pentagon is not a national security problem. The Interior Department “should take the hint and let the thousands of construction workers finish the job,” he said.

Orsted began construction in 2024 about 15 miles south of the Rhode Island coast. It says in its complaint that about $5 billion has been spent or committed, and it expects more than $1 billion in costs if the project is canceled. Rhode Island is already home to the five-turbine, offshore Block Island Wind Farm.

Editor’s note: McDermott reported from Providence, Rhode Island. AP writer Susan Haigh in Hartford, Connecticut contributed to this report.

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PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Connecticut, Rhode Island and the developer of an offshore wind farm that would power 350,000 homes in the two states said Thursday that they’re suing the Trump administration for stopping the nearly completed project.

Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha accused President Donald Trump of waging an “all-out assault” on the wind energy industry. The states’ lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Rhode Island, describes the Revolution Wind project as a “cornerstone” of their clean energy future, abruptly halted by federal officials without “statutory authority, regulatory justification or factual basis.”

Danish energy company Orsted filed a separate suit in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., also arguing that the administration lacks the legal authority to block the Revolution Wind project. Orsted said it would seek a preliminary injunction that would allow it to advance the project, which is 80 percent complete, with all underwater foundations and 45 of 65 turbines installed.

Interior Department spokesperson Elizabeth Peace said Thursday that the department doesn’t comment on pending litigation.

Work on the project was paused Aug. 22 when the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management issued a stop work order for what it said were national security concerns. They were not specified.

Trump has demonstrated hostility to renewable energy, particularly offshore wind. He has prioritized fossil fuels for electricity. Revolution Wind is the second major wind project that his administration ordered to stop. Work on the first, an offshore wind project for New York, was later allowed to resume.

In separate federal court filings, the administration said recently it was reconsidering approvals for three other wind farms: the Maryland Offshore Wind Project, SouthCoast Wind and New England Wind. Combined, those projects could power nearly 2.5 million homes in Maryland, Massachusetts and Rhode Island with clean electricity.

Sens. Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren, both Democrats representing Massachusetts, said Trump and his Cabinet “need to end their war on American energy and jobs.”

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum told CNN that he’s concerned offshore wind turbines distort radar detection systems, which could give cover to a bad actor to “launch a swarm drone attack through a wind farm.”

Retired U.S. Navy Cmdr. Kirk Lippold called that a “specious and false narrative” pushed by someone with an “overactive imagination in search of a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist.”

Lippold was commanding the USS Cole when al-Qaida attacked it in a Yemeni port in 2000.

If drones get so close to U.S. shores to be near a wind farm without being detected by the military, he said, “we have had a massive intelligence — a national security — failure.”

U.S. Sen. Jack Reed, a Rhode Island Democrat and national security expert, has also disputed the administration’s rationale, pointing to the Defense Department’s involvement in reviewing the project.

When the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management approved Revolution Wind in 2023, the agency said it consulted with the Defense Department at each stage of the regulatory process for the lease area assigned to the wind farm. The DOD concluded that with some site-specific stipulations, any impacts to its training and activities in the wind energy area would be “negligible and avoidable,” according to the record of decision.

The state and federal reviews took about nine years.

Trump and several Cabinet members repeatedly slammed wind power as ugly and expensive during a recent meeting. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. talked about the failure of a massive wind turbine blade at a different offshore wind farm under construction off Nantucket, Massachusetts.

Fiberglass fragments of a blade from the Vineyard Wind project broke apart and began washing ashore last summer during the peak of tourist season. Manufacturer GE Vernova agreed to pay $10.5 million in a settlement to compensate island businesses that suffered losses due to the blade failure.

“We’re not allowing any windmills to go up unless there’s a legal situation where somebody committed to it a long time ago,” Trump said.

Revolution Wind was expected to be Rhode Island and Connecticut’s first large offshore wind farm, capable of providing about 2.5 percent of the region’s electricity needs.

Orsted began construction in 2024 about 15 miles south of the Rhode Island coast. It says in its complaint that about $5 billion has been spent or committed, and it expects more than $1 billion in costs if the project is canceled. Rhode Island already has one offshore facility: the five-turbine Block Island Wind Farm.

Rhode Island and Connecticut have said that halting construction of Revolution Wind would harm the states, their residents, investments and the offshore wind industry. More than 1,000 people have been working on the wind farm, and Connecticut committed over $200 million to redevelop State Pier in New London to support the industry.

The states said they’re counting on Revolution Wind electricity, particularly in the winter, when demand in New England spikes and natural gas is prioritized for heating. The power would cost 9.8 cents per kilowatt-hour, locked in for 20 years. That’s cheaper than the average projected cost of energy in New England.

The head of Connecticut’s top environmental and energy agency, Katie Dykes, predicts it will cost the state’s electricity ratepayers tens of millions of dollars if the wind project doesn’t come online.

Editor’s note: AP writers Matthew Daly in Washington and Susan Haigh in Hartford, Connecticut contributed to this report.

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The Trump administration is canceling plans to use large areas of federal waters for new offshore wind development — the latest step to suppress the industry in the United States.

More than 3.5 million acres had been designated wind energy areas, as offshore locations deemed most suitable for development. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management is now rescinding all designated wind energy areas in federal waters, announcing on Wednesday an end to setting aside large areas for “speculative wind development.”

Offshore wind lease sales were anticipated off the coasts of Texas, Louisiana, Maine, New York, California and Oregon, as well as in the central Atlantic. The Biden administration last year had announced a five-year schedule to lease federal offshore tracts for wind energy production.

Trump began reversing the country’s energy policies after taking office in January. A series of executive orders took aim at increasing oil, gas and coal production. Another early executive order temporarily halted offshore wind lease sales in federal waters and paused the issuance of approvals, permits and loans for all wind projects.

The bureau said it was acting in accordance with Trump’s action and an order by his interior secretary this week to end any preferential treatment toward wind and solar facilities, which were described as unreliable, foreign-controlled energy sources.

Robin Shaffer, president of Protect Our Coast NJ, applauded the administration for its actions and said they were long overdue. Opponents of offshore wind projects are particularly vocal and organized in New Jersey.

“It’s hard to believe these projects ever got this far because of the immensity, scale, scope and expense, compared to relatively cheap and reliable forms of onshore power,” he said Thursday. “We’re nearly there, but we haven’t reached the finish line yet.”

The Sierra Club said the administration’s “relentless obstruction of wind energy” shows it does not care about creating affordable, reliable energy for everyday Americans.

“No matter how much they want to bolster their buddies in the dirty fossil fuel industry, we will continue to push for the cleaner, healthier, and greener future we deserve,” Xavier Boatright, Sierra Club’s deputy legislative director for clean energy and electrification, stated.

Attorneys general from 17 states and the District of Columbia are suing in federal court to challenge Trump’s executive order halting leasing and permitting for wind energy projects. His administration had also halted work on a major offshore wind project for New York but allowed it to resume in May.

The nation’s first commercial-scale offshore wind farm, a 12-turbine facility called South Fork, opened last year east of Montauk Point, New York.

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