Trump administration can reconsider SouthCoast Wind approval, judge rules

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(Reuters) -A U.S. District Court judge ruled on Tuesday that U.S. President Donald Trump’s Interior Department may reconsider the Biden administration’s approval of the SouthCoast Wind project planned off the coast of Massachusetts.

The order is a victory for the Trump administration, which argued that it had identified issues with the project’s environmental analysis and that a review could result in a withdrawal of the SouthCoast permit.

U.S. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum has said that offshore wind farms have no future under Trump, who has repeatedly called them ugly, expensive and harmful to wildlife.

The order sends the matter back to Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management to revisit its decision as part of Trump’s broad review of U.S. offshore wind leasing and permitting.

Judge Tanya Chutkan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia issued the ruling in a lawsuit brought by the island town of Nantucket, Massachusetts, earlier this year, challenging the agency’s approval of the project.

SouthCoast Wind’s developer, Ocean Winds, is a joint venture between Portugal’s EDP Renewables and France’s ENGIE.

In court documents, the company said it had invested $600 million in the project. It argued that a review of its permit would cause delays and jeopardize contracts for equipment and services that are necessary well in advance of construction.

In the order, Chutkan wrote that the court was not convinced that the developer was likely to suffer immediate and significant hardship as a result of the reconsideration.

Ocean Winds was not immediately available for comment.

(Reporting by Nichola Groom; Editing by Chris Reese, Bill Berkrot and Cynthia Osterman)