The lawsuit adds New York’s state government to a widening legal coalition contesting Interior stop-work orders against five East Coast offshore wind installations, alongside the projects’ developers and the states of Connecticut and Rhode Island.

New York Attorney General Letitia James sued the Trump administration on Friday in federal court in Washington, asking a judge to reverse a Dec. 22 Interior Department order that halted construction on two offshore wind projects off Long Island expected to power more than 1 million homes.

James said the stop-work order, issued by the Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, was “arbitrary and unwarranted.” The projects, she said, had already completed more than a decade of security and safety reviews by federal, state and local authorities before the suspension was issued.

“New Yorkers deserve clean, reliable energy, good-paying jobs, and a government that follows the law,” James said in a statement. “This reckless decision puts workers, families, and our climate goals at risk.”

Spokespersons for the Interior Department and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, both named as defendants, declined to comment Friday, citing the pending litigation.

The projects at issue

Empire Wind is located about 14 miles southeast of Long Island and is projected to power more than 500,000 homes. Equinor, the Norwegian energy company developing the project, has said it is about 60% complete.

Sunrise Wind is located about 30 miles east of Montauk and is expected to power about 600,000 homes. Orsted, the Danish energy company developing the project, has said construction is roughly 45% complete.

The Interior Department’s December order halted those two projects along with three other offshore wind installations under construction along the East Coast. The department has maintained that the movement of massive turbine blades can cause radar interference — called “clutter” — that may obscure legitimate moving targets and generate false ones. Trump has also dismissed offshore wind as ugly, expensive and a threat to wildlife as he has pushed fossil fuels over renewable energy for electricity production.

New York is not alone in contesting the orders. Both Equinor and Orsted have filed their own legal challenges, as have the states of Connecticut and Rhode Island.

Friday’s suit continues a broader legal campaign that James has led against the administration’s wind energy rollbacks. She previously led a coalition of attorneys general from 17 states and Washington, D.C., in challenging an earlier Trump executive order that paused approvals, permits and loans for all wind energy projects nationwide. Last month, a federal judge in Massachusetts sided with the coalition and vacated that Jan. 20, 2025, order. Days after that ruling, the Interior Department issued the Dec. 22 stop-work order targeting the East Coast construction projects.