California and other states sue Trump administration over wind energy

California and 17 other state attorneys general have filed a lawsuit attempting to stop the Trump administration’s efforts to thwart the development of wind energy projects.

The complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts comes in response to a Jan. 20 executive order by President Donald Trump that issued a temporary withdrawal of all areas on the outer Continental Shelf from offshore wind leasing.

The directive also called for a review of leasing and permitting for all wind energy projects across the country, alleging they “may lead to grave harm” that includes “negative impacts on navigational safety interests, transportation interests, national security interests, commercial interests, and marine mammals.”

The 101-page lawsuit from states led by Democrats says the executive order is unlawful and creates “an existential threat to the wind industry.”

The issue is important to California policymakers because the development of numerous offshore wind projects in Central and Northern California is essential for the state to meet its goal of deriving 100% of its electricity from carbon-free sources by 2045 or sooner.

Gov. Gavin Newsom and state energy officials expect offshore wind to generate as much as 5 gigawatts of power by 2030 and 25 gigawatts by 2045. For perspective, the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant in San Luis Obispo County produces 2.24 gigawatts of capacity, which accounts for about 9% of the state’s power mix each year.

Five companies collectively bid $751.1 million in December 2022 to win the leases to build wind farms off the coasts of Morro Bay in Central California and Humboldt Bay in Northern California. When completed, each project that covers tens of thousands of acres will be located at least 20 miles from the mainland, in federal waters.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta called the Trump executive order illegal and reckless, saying in a statement that it “will not only reverse America’s progress in clean energy initiatives, but our communities will also suffer the economic consequences of the President’s misguided lawlessness.”

At least three offshore wind farms currently operate in the U.S., each of them on the East Coast, with more in the planning and construction stages.

However, building offshore projects on the West Coast requires a different set of design and engineering challenges. Unlike the Eastern Seaboard, where turbines can be bolted into the seabed, the continental shelf off the coast in the Pacific plunges steeply.

That means offshore wind farms in California will float on the water’s surface, tethered or moored by cables to the ocean floor. Electricity generated by turbines will be transmitted to a floating substation and carried to a power plant onshore via buried cables.

California will be the first region in the U.S. to use floating wind turbines.

The projects in the Morro Bay and Humboldt County areas are still in the very early stages of development.

While final designs are still to be submitted, each turbine will soar as high as a 70-story building, with blades larger than a football field to harvest the maximum amount of wind. At a distance of at least 20 miles, the towers, the California Energy Commission says, are “not expected to be highly visible” from the shore.

While the lawsuit, filed Monday, works its way through the courts, Trump’s executive order has led to hesitation from at least one offshore wind developer.

Last week, RWE, a German company, said it is halting U.S. projects for the time being.

“We have introduced higher requirements for future investments in the U.S.,” company CEO Markus Krebber said on April 30. “All necessary federal permits must be in place. Tax credits must be safe harbored and all relevant tariff risks mitigated. Only if these conditions are met will further investments be possible, given the political environment.”

RWE is one of the five companies that secured a bid in 2022’s federal lease auction in California and announced plans to develop a 1.6-gigawatt project called the Canopy Offshore Wind Farm, some 20 miles off the coast of Humboldt County.

Asked what the CEO’s remarks mean for the project, Ryan Ferguson, director of external communications for RWE Clean Energy, said in an email to the Union-Tribune, “RWE retains the federal offshore wind lease area for our Canopy offshore wind project off the North Coast of California and will continue to work with stakeholders and policymakers to build a long-term, offshore wind industry.”

At a symposium earlier this year in Long Beach, California Energy Commission chair David Hochschild said, “Now more than ever, California needs to be the hand around that candle of hope and keep the momentum going.”

Others expressed optimism the offshore projects will go forward.

“The reality is that many of the key milestones involving federal action fall after or near the end of the Trump administration,” said Assemblymember Rick Chavez Zbur, D-Hollywood. “So even that less supportive stance doesn’t need to slow us down … We’re not putting a pause on this for four years.”

But there has been some local opposition.

A pair of organizations of commercial fishermen have filed lawsuits to try to stop the Morro Bay projects, fearing they will disrupt the region’s fishing industry and marine habitats.

The REACT Alliance, a nonprofit based in San Luis Obispo, also has cited environmental concerns such as blades striking and killing migratory birds, mooring lines corroding in saltwater and entangling marine life, plus potential harm the sound from wind turbines has on whales.

Supporters of the projects say wind farms can be built to safely co-exist with birds and marine life while keeping the fishing industry thriving.

There are no plans to develop offshore wind in San Diego and Southern California. Wind speeds in the south are not as steady and strong as those in Central and Northern California.

Also, military officials, in discussions with the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, designated Southern California a “wind exclusion” area because they fear offshore wind facilities would interfere with training missions.

The states joining California in the lawsuit against the Trump administration are New York, Massachusetts, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Washington and Rhode Island. The attorney general for Washington, D.C., also joined the coalition.