Ørsted, the parent company of the Sunrise Wind turbine project, announced today that the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia has granted a preliminary injunction sought by Sunrise Wind LLC to overturn the suspension order issued by the Director of the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (‘BOEM’) on Dec. 22 of 2025.
The court action is the latest in a series of overturned decisions made by the courts regarding the pre-Christmas Day directive, which paused work on other wind turbine projects along the East Coast, citing national security concerns after an attempt made by the Trump administration to halt said projects with stop-work orders failed in the courts in early December.
The work suspension on Empire Offshore Wind was overturned with a preliminary injunction by Judge Carl J. Nichols of the U.S. District Court on Jan. 15. Vineyard Wind was then permitted to resume construction on its 62-unit turbine by Massachusetts District Court Judge Brian Murphy on Jan. 27.
“Purportedly new classified information does not constitute a sufficient explanation for the bureau’s decision to entirely stop work on the Sunrise Wind project,” Judge Royce Lamberth stated when making his decision today.
The Sunrise Wind project offshore of Smith Point County Park is presently about 45% complete with its 84-turbine wind farm. Last month, The City reported that Ørsted lost approximately $1 million per day while the project was halted.
“Today’s court decision allowing Sunrise Wind to immediately resume construction is a win for New York’s working families and our economy,” said U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand in a statement. “As energy costs continue to soar, the Trump administration’s ridiculous attempts to halt this project would have killed good-paying jobs and raised energy costs on New Yorkers.”
