By: Jordan Baker

As the New York Post reported, construction on one of New York’s largest offshore wind projects is back on track after a federal judge temporarily blocked the Trump administration’s effort to shut it down, ruling that the suspension risked inflicting fatal damage on the development.

U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols on Thursday issued a preliminary injunction halting enforcement of a Dec. 22 stop-work order imposed by the Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. The federal directive had frozen construction on Empire Wind, an offshore wind farm being developed by Norwegian energy company Equinor, citing unspecified national security concerns.

According to the NY Post’s reporting, Nichols concluded that keeping the suspension in place could effectively doom the project. In his ruling, the judge said Empire Wind demonstrated that delays would cause more than financial harm, threatening the project’s very survival due to the limited availability of specialized construction vessels and strict development deadlines.

Nichols likened the situation to an imminent threat, writing that courts do not need to wait for irreversible harm to occur before intervening. If Empire Wind lost access to the highly specialized ships required for offshore construction, he warned, the opportunity to complete the project on schedule could vanish entirely.

The decision allows Equinor to restart offshore construction after work was abruptly halted as part of a broader Trump administration review of five East Coast wind projects. As the NY Post reported, President Trump has long been a vocal critic of wind power, once calling it “the worst form of energy,” while favoring fossil fuels, nuclear power, and other energy sources.

In a statement following the ruling, Equinor said it would move quickly but carefully to resume work that had been paused during the suspension. The company also said it would continue coordinating with federal officials to ensure the project’s operations meet safety and security requirements.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul praised the court’s decision and sharply criticized the rationale behind the stop-work order. As reported by the NY Post, Hochul dismissed the national security justification as baseless, saying state officials were never briefed on any credible threat off New York’s coast.

Empire Wind is designed to be a major pillar of New York’s renewable energy ambitions. Built in two phases, the project is expected to generate more than 2,000 megawatts of electricity—enough to power over one million homes. The first phase, Empire Wind 1, is slated to produce 810 megawatts and is already about 60% complete.

Construction began in 2024, and all 54 massive monopile foundations have already been driven into the seabed roughly 15 to 20 miles southeast of Long Island. These structures will support the wind turbines once installation resumes. Onshore and near-shore work, including cable staging and grid connections, is ongoing in New York Harbor and Brooklyn, according to the NY Post.