Leader Schumer Floor Remarks On Trump Administration’s Reversal Of The Stop Work Order On Equinor’s Offshore Wind Project

Washington, D.C. – Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) today spoke on the Senate floor to applaud the Trump administration’s decision to reverse its baseless stop work order on Equinor’s Empire Wind project, a move that will save thousands of New York jobs, preserve billions in clean energy investment, and restart construction on one of the nation’s largest offshore wind projects. Below are Senator Schumer’s remarks, which can also be viewed here:

Yesterday, after weeks of fierce backlash, the Trump administration backed off its unjustified work-stop order for Equinor’s Empire Wind off the coast of Long Island.

I am really glad the administration backed off. For weeks, I worked with Governor Hochul, Equinor, and pushed Secretary Lutnick to release their report explaining their work stop order.

They told Equinor they must stop. They said you didn't meet environmental assessments. They wouldn't tell them why. They couldn't even answer.

They were so frustrated that they were ready to leave, even though they invested billions and billions already in the ground to build these turbines, which could provide up to 800,000 families with cheaper electricity.

Well, the reversal is good. It will save more than a thousand good paying New York Jobs on Long Island and on Staten Island, and it will preserve billions in private investment.

What kind of country encourages companies to invest in America and then all of a sudden makes them lose four or five billion dollars that they’ve already sunk into the ground without even giving them a reason for it?

A few days later and this project could have been scrapped entirely –a disaster for New York’s economy and for the entire wind energy industry.

The work-stop announcement was rotten the moment it was issued. The administration never gave a real explanation for its many claims that Equinor’s permits were rushed.

This order seemed more like a broadside against the wind industry than anything else.

So, this episode should serve as a warning to other industries: Donald Trump may try to push you, but if you push back he will back off.

I say that to all the wind and solar folks who are producing and are about to produce good, clean, low-cost energy, who Donald Trump and the Republicans in the House and maybe in the Senate are threatening by cutting off the tax breaks we were able to get done in the IRA.

Now that this order is lifted, billions of dollars in private investment will flow once again into to New York.

Thousands of New Yorkers, and offshore wind supply chain workers across the country, can get back to work.

Construction can continue on a project that will power half a million homes.

And we can proceed on one of the biggest, most significant offshore wind projects in the country.

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