U.S. Halts Construction of Empire Wind Project in NY

Doug Burgum, U.S. Secretary of the Interior and chair of the National Energy Dominance Council, has ordered an immediate stop to all construction work on Equinor’s Empire Wind 1 project off the coast of New York.

In a social media post, Burgum announced that the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management was instructed—after consultation with U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick—“to immediately halt all construction activities on the Empire Wind Project.”

The suspension will remain in place while officials review claims that the project may have been approved too hastily by the Biden administration, without adequate environmental or regulatory analysis.

Burgum later stated that President Donald Trump had called for thorough assessments of all federal wind initiatives on his first day back in office, and that the Department of the Interior was “doing its part to make sure these instructions are followed.”

The decision comes shortly after Norwegian energy company Equinor quietly began construction on Empire Wind 1, without issuing a press release or holding a public ceremony. Details of the work only surfaced through a mariner notice revealing that Van Oord would be installing subsea rock within the project’s lease area—intended to support 54 wind turbines and one offshore substation—between April and July 2025.

If fully realized, the Empire Wind project will consist of two phases totaling nearly 150 turbines spread across 320 square kilometers of the Atlantic Ocean.

New York Governor Kathy Hochul, a vocal backer of the wind farm, criticized the federal action, noting the project had already broken ground before the president’s recent executive orders.

“As Governor, I will not allow this federal overreach to stand. I will fight this every step of the way to protect union jobs, affordable energy and New York’s economic future,” Hochul said.