Clean Ocean Action, Protect Our Coast New Jersey (POCNJ), and ACK for Whales have filed a federal lawsuit to block the construction of the Empire Wind offshore wind project.
The lawsuit calls on the federal government to reinstate the stop-work order issued on April 16 by U.S. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum.
The Empire Wind project—a large-scale offshore wind facility proposed just outside New York Harbor—was halted in April by Secretary Burgum, who stated the project had been “rushed through by the prior administration without sufficient analysis or consultation among the relevant agencies.”
However, on May 19, Burgum abruptly reversed the stop work order without explanation.
The three nonprofit environmental organizations argue that the Empire Wind project violates key federal environmental regulations. The plaintiffs are also seeking to void Equinor’s Empire Wind lease, arguing it violates the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA) by awarding U.S. offshore territory to a company controlled by a foreign government.
“U.S. commercial fishermen operating U.S. vessels will be pushed off their domestic fishing grounds to make way for foreign-flagged vessels with foreign crews constructing a wind facility owned by the Kingdom of Norway, right in U.S. waters. That’s not America First,” said Meghan Lapp, POCNJ Board Member and Seafreeze Fisheries Liaison.
Joining the lawsuit are a wide range of generational fishing families, historic seafood operations, whale watch operators, and civic leaders from the East Coast, including Belford Seafood Co-op, Miss Belmar Inc. and Fisherman’s Dock Cooperative (Point Pleasant Beach along with Lund’s Fisheries of Cape May and several operations in New York, Rhode Island and Connecticut,
