No one will argue that renewable energy is complicated and expensive, but the benefit lies in the preserved ecology and health. How can this be discounted? It turns out that it can be: literally with the stroke of a pen. On the first day of his second term, US President Donald Trump banned all wind energy projects on federal lands, thereby stopping a complex process that had barely gained momentum.
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One can argue about the expediency and appropriateness of renewable and wind energy, but stopping operating mechanisms by a strong-willed decision of an individual may not always be justified. Such programs have been developed and implemented for more than one five-year period and involve a lot of people, not to mention the money spent. Nevertheless, the decision was made and now the court will have to sort this out.
The District of Columbia and 17 states, including New York, Arizona, Massachusetts, California, Colorado, and Illinois, filed a lawsuit against Donald Trump on May 5, 2025. This is legally possible for states if federal actions can be called “arbitrary” and “unreasonable,” as defined by the U.S. Administrative Procedure Act.
«”This administration is destroying one of the fastest growing sources of clean, reliable and affordable energy in our country,” New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a press release.
In the lawsuit, the states argue that by signing a presidential memorandum on his first day in office that halted federal approval of wind energy projects, President Trump has deprived them of the ability to reduce pollution and provide affordable electricity to their residents. They claim that the billions of dollars they have invested in wind energy infrastructure, workforce development, and supply chains are at risk.
Moreover, Trump later signed an executive order that would boost energy development in the U.S., but it excluded wind and other renewable energy and emphasized the importance of fossil fuels, which the lawsuit’s authors find unacceptable. Moreover, the complaint, filed today in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, calls the president’s directive an “existential threat” to an industry that has already “stopped wind energy development.”