'Desperate rush': giant Iberdrola US wind project faces new legal challenge
ACK for Whales with DC-law firm Marzulla spearheads suit against Spanish energy giant's 2.6GW project
Nantucket-based anti-offshore wind group ACK for Whales is spearheading a lawsuit against Iberdrola-owned Avangrid’s 2.6GW New England offshore wind array to Massachusetts that aims to leverage Trump’s sector hostility to stop the project.
The group, formerly ACK-Rats, with a consortium of environmentalists, fisheries associations and the Wampanoag Indian Tribe, filed the suit in the District Court for the District of Columbia in Washington, DC, yesterday.
The suit alleges federal agencies, including the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management under the Department of the Interior and the National Marine Fisheries Service under the Department of Commerce, violated multiple environmental laws when approving the project last July.
“In offshore wind project after offshore wind project, from Revolution Wind, Vineyard Wind and New England Wind to the others, the government was so desperate to rush these projects that it cut corners and violated the law,” ACK for Whales president Vallorie Oliver said.
“The government didn’t care if it trampled on the Wampanoag sacred beliefs and rites, hurt the charter boat, fishing and lobster industries or wiped out the Right whales. The only thing that mattered was to get these environmentally destructive turbines built, costs to the rest of us be damned.”
The suit was filed by Washington, DC firm Marzulla Law, which has a track record of litigating against environmental regulation.
Marzulla is representing Ocean City, Maryland, in a case against Renexia’s 2.2GW US Wind in federal district court.
The firm's case against Avangrid-Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners’ Vineyard Wind 1 on behalf of Responsible Offshore Development Alliance failed at both the district and appellate levels and was ultimately thrown out by the Supreme Court.
ACK for Whales has since appealed directly to the Trump administration and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to pull Vineyard’s Clean Air permit. The EPA voided this permit for EDF’s Atlantic Shores array to New Jersey in response to litigation efforts.
Six of 11 projects approved under former President Joe Biden face litigation, none of which has successfully stopped a project.
President Donald Trump’s anti-wind memorandum freezing offshore wind leasing and permitting and putting existing projects under review may impact this trend, however.
Trump’s order for reviews of existing projects is open-ended and is aimed at “terminating or amending” them, with huge implications for the sector.
Already, Equinor’s $5bn Empire Wind 1 was hit with a stop-work order under the authority of the Trump memo that idled construction for a month before ultimately being rescinded.
The Presidential memorandum also allows the Justice Department to side with plaintiffs or otherwise stay project litigation, raising risks for the six projects facing suits.