On December 8, 2025, in the case of New York v. Trump, the federal district court for the District of Massachusetts vacated orders from several federal agencies that implemented a moratorium on permitting and approvals for wind energy projects in response to one of the current administration’s “day one” executive actions. The court vacated the agencies’ orders and declared those orders unlawful, but it did not issue any relief with respect to specific wind energy projects or permits that had been affected by the agency moratoria.
This decision is consistent with court decisions under the former administration that similarly rejected agency moratoria on offshore oil and gas leasing in 2022 (Louisiana v. Biden, 622 F. Supp. 3d 267, 291-92 (W.D. La. 2022))and authorizations for the export of liquefied natural gas to countries without free trade agreements (Louisiana v. Biden, Case No. 24-cv-406, Mem. Ruling, ECF No. 72 (W.D. La. July 1, 2024)).
On January 20, 2025, the President issued a Presidential Memorandum (Memorandum) temporarily withdrawing all areas of the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) from disposition for wind energy leasing under section 2 of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act. The Memorandum prohibited new or renewed wind energy leases on the OCS. While the Memorandum did not immediately affect existing leases, it directed the Secretary of the Interior – who oversees the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), which leases the OCS – to review existing offshore wind energy leases and consider legal bases to terminate or amend them.
The Memorandum also directed the Departments of the Interior, Agriculture, and Energy, as well as the Environmental Protection Agency, to decline to issue any new or renewed approvals, rights of way, permits, leases, or loans for both onshore and offshore wind projects, “pending the completion of a comprehensive assessment and review of Federal wind leasing and permitting practices” in light of alleged inadequacies in previous reviews under the National Environmental Policy Act.
On the same day the President issued his memorandum, the Secretary of the Interior issued an order temporarily suspending all delegations of authority within the Department to issue any onshore or offshore renewable energy authorization. While that order stated that it would remain in effect for sixty days, the Court found that Interior and other agencies had continued their temporary pause on issuing permits for wind energy projects beyond that time frame. And on July 30, 2025, BOEM rescinded all designated Wind Energy Areas (WEAs) on the OCS; WEAs were areas that were designated as suitable for wind energy development as a necessary step in the agency’s multi-stage planning process for offshore wind development, but had not yet been leased for wind energy development.
Seventeen states (Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Washington) and the District of Columbia sued the federal agencies that were the subject of the Memorandum. The states asserted claims under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), arguing that the agencies’ implementation of the Memorandum was arbitrary and capricious and contrary to law, and seeking an order vacating the Memorandum.
The Court first determined that the states had standing to sue, having suffered injury because of decreased tax revenue and increased energy costs resulting from delayed and cancelled wind projects, and because of the harm to the states’ clean energy and greenhouse gas reduction goals. The Court also found that an intervenor group, the Alliance for Clean Energy New York, had standing to sue via its members, who operate (or seek to operate) wind projects in thirty-two states and provide products and services in the wind energy supply chain, and who have suffered economic injuries as a result of the Memorandum.
Turning to the merits, the Court held that the agencies’ actions implementing the Memorandum – that is, the pause on approvals for wind projects – were final agency actions reviewable under the APA. This section of the decision relied on several cases in holding that various kinds of moratoria were final agency actions with respect to the moratoria, and were therefore reviewable under the APA.
The Court next found that, although the APA does not apply to a presidential memorandum or other directive, the APA does apply to the agency actions implementing that directive, which must follow the APA’s requirements that agencies provide a reasoned explanation for their decisions. The Court distinguished a recent order on the Supreme Court’s emergency docket involving the issuance of passports. That decision had limited arbitrary and capricious review in situations where the relevant statute requires the agency to follow the President’s directives, and thus leaves no room for agency discretion.
In New York v. Trump, by contrast, the Court noted that several statutes direct agencies to promptly process wind energy permit applications, and do not commit the disposition of those applications to the President’s discretion. In fact, the federal defendants conceded that “no statute expressly requires them to follow rules prescribed by the President regarding wind energy authorizations.” Because the agencies had only considered the Memorandum and the Secretary of the Interior’s order suspending the issuance of permits for wind energy projects, the Court found that the agencies had not “reasonably considered the relevant issues and reasonably explained the[ir] decision” as the APA requires. The Court also found that the agencies’ moratorium on wind energy permitting was “contrary to law” because several laws relating to wind energy permitting either contain fixed deadlines applicable to permit processing or require the agencies to act promptly, and because the APA itself requires reasonably expeditious agency proceedings. See 5 U.S.C. §§ 555(b), 558(c). Thus, the Court vacated the agency orders pausing wind energy permitting and declared them unlawful.
The decision in New York v. Trump does not address the legality of the Memorandum itself, and does not speak to the merits of any particular project or application. In fact, the Court notes that the APA does not require any particular result when the agencies process specific permit applications. Rather, the case makes clear that permitting agencies cannot justify further delays on permit processing by relying on the Presidential Memorandum or awaiting completion of the “comprehensive assessment” it calls for. To comply with the Court’s decision, agency staff should resume processing permits for individual wind projects. In the event agencies continue to slow-walk wind permit applications, applicants are likely to rely on this decision as a predicate for “failure to act” claims under the APA (see 5 U.S.C. 706(1)).