“This administration is devastating one of our nation’s fastest-growing sources of clean, reliable and affordable energy,” said Attorney General Letitia James of New York, which is one of the plaintiffs. She said the halt threatened “the loss of thousands of good-paying jobs and billions in investments” and was “delaying our transition away from the fossil fuels that harm our health and our planet.”

The halt on federal permits for wind energy was first laid out in a Jan. 20 executive order, one of a barrage that President Trump signed immediately upon taking office. It directed agencies to stop all permits for wind farms pending federal review.

The lawsuit says that, by complying, federal agencies have put major investments that have already been made at risk. The order also instructed the United States attorney general and the interior secretary to explore “terminating or amending” existing leases to wind farms, further increasing uncertainty for companies.

The wind industry provides about 10 percent of the nation’s electricity, and has many new projects under development, particularly in the Great Plains and the Atlantic Ocean.

Last month, the Trump administration halted a major wind farm under construction off the coast of Long Island, the Empire Wind project. It was designed to provide enough electricity to power a half-million homes. It had already received the permits it needed, but Interior Secretary Doug Burgum suggested the Biden administration’s analysis during the approval process was rushed and insufficient.

Ms. James noted that Mr. Trump had also declared an energy emergency. Energy experts have called that declaration overstated. Nevertheless, she said, the moratorium on wind permits is harming the ability to provide a new source of energy.

New York also has a new law on the books requiring it to dramatically increase the amount of electricity that comes from renewable sources. Achieving that goal will become more complicated without wind sources.

The lawsuit names numerous federal officials and agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency and the Interior Department. The E.P.A. didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Taylor Rogers, a White House spokeswoman, accused the Democratic attorneys general who sued of using “lawfare” to thwart the president’s energy agenda. “Americans in blue states should not have to pay the price of the Democrats’ radical climate agenda,” she said.

The Interior Department said in a statement that it was committed to “overseeing public lands and waters for the benefit of all Americans, while prioritizing fiscal responsibility for the American people.”

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Massachusetts, asks a judge to prevent federal agencies from taking any action to block wind-energy development and to declare the executive order unlawful.

“The Trump administration’s directive to halt the development of offshore wind energy is illegal,” said Rob Bonta, the attorney general of California.

His office said the federal policy would “derail the clean energy transition” and lead to higher costs for Americans. In addition to onshore wind sites, the state has five federal offshore wind leases, the office said. Offshore operations are more complicated and expensive to operate.

Timothy Fox, managing director of ClearView Energy Partners, a Washington consulting firm, said that he expected the lawsuit to face an uphill climb in convincing the court to block the executive order. The firm’s “best-case scenario” for the offshore wind industry is that facilities that are already operating, or far along in development, may continue without opposition from the Trump administration, he said.

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In a first-of-its kind auction for the Gulf of Mexico, a company bid $5.6 million Tuesday to lease federal waters off the Louisiana coast for wind energy generation.

It was a modest start for wind energy in the Gulf, which lags the Northeast in offshore wind power development. Only one of three available tracts received bids. And only two companies bid. The winning bidder was RWE Offshore US.

The Biden administration said the tract covers more than 102,000 acres (41,200 hectares) with the potential for generation of 1.24 gigawatts, enough wind power to supply 435,000 homes.

Analysts cited a variety of factors behind the current, relatively low interest in the lease sale, including inflation and challenges specific to the area such as lower wind speeds and the need for designs that consider hurricane threats.

Washington-based research group Clearview Energy Partners said in a Tuesday analysis that Gulf states’ governments lack the needed offshore wind targets or mandates for renewable energy that could encourage more wind development.

Clearview’s report also said wind energy is likely to play a key role in development of clean hydrogen production. The Biden administration has yet to implement a planned tax credit for hydrogen — another possible drag on immediate interest in Gulf wind leases, the report said.

“Offshore wind developers have to pick and choose where to deploy their resources and time and energy. It is not surprising that they are more interested in locations like the Northeast where power prices are higher and offshore wind is better positioned to compete,” Becky Diffen, a partner specializing in renewable energy financing at the Norton Rose Fulbright law firm in Houston.

Other factors bode well for eventual wind development in the Gulf. “While RWE may be the only company to have won a bid for federal waters in the Gulf, there are a few companies interested in pursuing offshore wind in Louisiana state waters,” Clearview said. “We note Louisiana lawmakers enacted a law last year that expanded the size of allowable offshore wind leases in state water.”

In a region where offshore oil and gas production remain a major economic driver, industries are embracing wind energy as well. For instance, Louisiana shipbuilding giant Edison Chouest Offshore is assembling a 260-foot-long (80-meter) vessel to serve as floating quarters for offshore wind technicians and their tools to be used to run wind farms in the Northeast.

“Today’s auction results show the important role state public policy plays in offshore wind market development,” Luke Jeanfreau of the Business Network for Offshore Wind, an organization formed to aid the development of offshore wind. “Gulf expertise in offshore construction is unparalleled, and their innovative solutions will continue to drive the U.S. and global offshore wind industry forward.”

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The announcement is another step toward making good on President Joe Biden’s target of 30 gigawatts of offshore wind energy by 2030, a goal that would generate enough energy to power 10 million homes, according to the administration. It also expects these developments to support more than 75,000 jobs.

The administration identified two areas slated for offshore wind development. One is a 399-square-mile region near Morro Bay, in central California. The other is off the coast of Humboldt County near the Oregon coast.

The water along the Pacific coast is much deeper than the Atlantic, and given that constraint, the administration said the wind turbines there will be floating — a technology that the Department of Energy has invested $100 million in researching.

At three gigawatts, the proposed Morro Bay wind farm would dwarf the 800-megawatt Vineyard Wind project the Biden administration announced earlier this month. The Vineyard farm, which will be located 12 miles off the shore of Martha’s Vineyard, is expected to include up to 84 turbines, according to the administration.

“We’re talking about a game-changing investment in a green energy future,” said California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat. The offshore wind projects will generate power “without impacting diverse communities, but benefiting diverse communities,” he said.

The Department of Defense has up until now opposed offshore wind along the Pacific coast because of the potential disruption to military training and testing. Undersecretary for Defense Policy Colin Kahl said Tuesday that the “defense department is satisfied that there’s not a tradeoff between our green energy goals” and other military goals.

“It’s our view that the world faces a grave and growing climate crisis,” Kahl said. “Climate change is both a threat to the Department of Defense’s operations around the world and an existential challenge to our ability to maintain resilience here at home.”

Angela Fritz and Drew Kann | CNN News

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration is moving to sharply increase offshore wind energy along the East Coast, saying Monday it is taking initial steps toward approving a huge wind farm off the New Jersey coast as part of an effort to generate electricity for more than 10 million homes nationwide by 2030.

Meeting the target could mean jobs for more than 44,000 workers and for 33,000 others in related employment, the White House said. The effort also would help avoid 78 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions per year, a key step in the administration’s fight to slow global warming.

President Joe Biden “believes we have an enormous opportunity in front of us to not only address the threats of climate change, but use it as a chance to create millions of good-paying, union jobs that will fuel America’s economic recovery,” said White House climate adviser Gina McCarthy. “Nowhere is the scale of that opportunity clearer than for offshore wind.”

The administration’s commitment to the still untapped industry “will create pathways to the middle class for people from all backgrounds and communities,” she added. “We are ready to rock-and-roll.”

The administration said it intends to prepare a formal environmental analysis for the Ocean Wind project off New Jersey. That would move Ocean Wind toward becoming the third commercial-scale offshore wind project in the U.S.

The Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management said it is targeting offshore wind projects in shallow waters between Long Island and the New Jersey coast. A recent study shows the area can support up to 25,000 development and construction jobs by 2030, Interior said.

The ocean energy bureau said it will push to sell commercial leases in the area in late 2021 or early 2022.

The administration also pledged to invest $230 million to upgrade U.S. ports and provide up to $3 billion in loan guarantees for offshore wind projects through the Energy Department‘s recently revived clean-energy loan program.

“It is going to be a full-force gale of good-paying, union jobs that lift people up,” said Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm.

Ocean Wind, 15 miles off the coast of southern New Jersey, is projected to produce about 1,100 megawatts a year, enough to power 500,000 homes, once it becomes operational in 2024.

The Interior Department has previously announced environmental reviews for Vineyard Wind in Massachusetts and South Fork wind farm about 35 miles east of Montauk Point in Long Island, N.Y. Vineyard Wind is expected to produce about 800 megawatts of power and South Fork about 132 megawatts.

Biden has vowed to double offshore wind production by 2030 as part of his effort to slow climate change. The likely approval of the Atlantic Coast projects — the leading edge of at least 16 offshore wind projects along the East Coast — marks a sharp turnaround from the Trump administration, which stymied wind power both onshore and in the ocean.

As president, Donald Trump frequently derided wind power as an expensive, bird-slaughtering way to make electricity, and his administration resisted or opposed wind projects nationwide, including Vineyard Wind. The developer of the Massachusetts project temporarily withdrew its application late last year in a bid to stave off possible rejection by the Trump administration. Biden provided a fresh opening for the project after taking office in January.

“For generations, we’ve put off the transition to clean energy and now we’re facing a climate crisis,” said Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, whose department oversees offshore wind.

“As our country faces the interlocking challenges of a global pandemic, economic downturn, racial injustice and the climate crisis, we have to transition to a brighter future for everyone,” Haaland said.

Vineyard Wind is slated to become operational in 2023, with Ocean Wind following a year later.

Despite the enthusiasm, offshore wind development is still in its infancy in the U.S., far behind progress made in Europe. A small wind farm operates near Block Island in waters controlled by the state of Rhode Island, and another small wind farm operates off the coast of Virginia.

The three major projects under development are all owned by European companies or subsidiaries. Vineyard Wind is a joint project of a Danish company and a U.S. subsidiary of the Spanish energy giant, Iberdrola. Ocean Wind and South Fork are led by the Danish company, Orsted.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Monday it is signing an agreement with Orsted to share data about U.S. waters where the company holds leases. The data should aid NOAA’s ocean-mapping efforts and help it advance climate adaptation and mitigation efforts, the agency said. NOAA also will spend $1 million to study the impacts of offshore wind operations on fishing operators and coastal communities.

Wind developers are poised to create tens of thousands of jobs and generate more than $100 billion in new investment by 2030, “but the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management must first open the door to new leasing,″ said Erik Milito, president of the National Ocean Industries Association.

Not everyone is cheering the rise of offshore wind. Fishing groups from Maine to Florida have expressed fear that large offshore wind projects could render huge swaths of the ocean off-limits to their catch.

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