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lite.cnn.com - on gopher - inofficial
ARTICLE VIEW:
Canceled wind project puts thousands of jobs at risk
By Gordon Ebanks, CNN
Updated:
11:14 AM EDT, Tue August 26, 2025
Source: CNN
Thousands of jobs are in jeopardy after the White House halted
construction on a nearly complete wind farm in Rhode Island, the latest
volley by the Trump administration against wind power.
Danish clean energy company Ørsted, one of the project’s developers,
received an order late Friday from the Bureau of Ocean Energy
Management (BOEM) to immediately halt work on a wind project off the
coast of Rhode Island that was 80% complete. Acting BOEM Director
Matthew Giacona “concerns related to the protection of national
security interests of the United States,” but did not mention
specifics.
Those involved in the project say pulling the plug threatens not only
higher energy costs for residents, but thousands of jobs.
The wind project supports “more than 2,500 US jobs across
construction, operations, shipbuilding, and manufacturing,” Tory
Mazzola, head of communications and public affairs for Ørsted
Americas, told CNN in a statement Monday. “Hundreds more union
workers are slated to work offshore before the end of this year. All
these jobs hang in the balance from this stop-work order.”
When asked about job loss, BOEM said it had no additional comment. The
White House referred CNN back to the Interior Department, which
oversees BOEM.
President Donald Trump, who has raged for many years, has released a
series of executive orders and statements during his second term
undermining wind power.
“We started to use wind,” Trump said Monday when discussing US
energy. “Wind doesn’t work.”
Called Revolution Wind, the stalled project is located in federal
waters 15 miles south of Rhode Island and began construction under the
Biden administration in 2023. Ørsted estimates a completed project
would provide enough energy to power upwards of 350,000 homes across
Rhode Island and Connecticut. It was scheduled to be finished next
year.
Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont, a Democrat, blasted the decision in a
Monday press conference, claiming halting the project would hurt the
state’s economy and hamper regional grid reliability.
Connecticut and Rhode Island residents rank third and fifth,
respectively, in prices paid for residential electricity, according to
latest data from the US Energy Information Administration.
Local labor leaders say the Trump administration is also cutting off
high-paying union jobs.
Patrick Crowley, president of the Rhode Island AFL-CIO, called the
order “a betrayal of Rhode Island’s working-class.”
“A lot of our members… voted for this administration, and this
isn’t what they voted for,” said Michael Sabitoni, president of the
Rhode Island Building and Construction Trades Council, which represents
many of the unions working on Revolution Wind. “They didn’t vote
for them to put them on the unemployment line.”
Sabitoni said Friday’s order didn’t come as a surprise. The unions
have been concerned about the “signals” the administration has been
sending, but he called cancelling a nearly-completed project an act of
“recklessness.”
“To stop a project that’s 80% complete, lay off hundreds and
hundreds of tradesmen and women and other people that are supplying
that industry for no apparent reason… makes no sense,” he said.
“It’s one of the most asinine moves I’ve ever seen in my career.
And I’ve been doing this for 38 years.”
In April, a similar stop-work order was issued for another offshore
wind project in waters surrounding New York. That order was eventually
allowing the construction to continue, but at a cost of $955 million to
the company behind the project.
Lamont suggested Connecticut leaders could make a deal with the Trump
administration to get the project back up and running, since it’s so
close to being finished.
“We’re on the eighth inning of this baseball game,” Lamont said.
-CNN’s Ella Nilsen contributed to this report
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