States Lack Right to Sue Trump Over Wind Pause, DOJ Tells Court

The Justice Department urged a federal judge to dismiss a preliminary injunction motion brought by a New York-led coalition of states over the Trump administration’s offshore wind approval pause, saying the states lack standing to sue and failed to show they’d suffer concrete harm.

Plaintiffs failed to state a claim, show likelihood on the success of the merits, and identify alleged statutory violations in their May 5 complaint against President Donald Trump and several federal agencies, according to a Thursday memorandum filed in opposition to the states’ request for a preliminary injunction.

Specifically, the 17 states and Washington, D.C., didn’t name a “final agency action” at the center of their complaint, according to the memorandum, which was filed in the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts.

Trump issued a January executive order pausing permitting for wind projects that states said would risk harms including hurting their climate goals and wasting hefty amounts of renewable energy investments. But the “alleged risk to these extremely broad and unspecific benefits from wind power” doesn’t show direct harm, the Justice Department said.

The Department of the Interior in April halted construction on a massive offshore wind project off the coast of Long Island. But that order wasn’t based on the wind directive and has since been lifted, according to the memorandum.

Trump’s January wind directive also isn’t reviewable under the Administrative Procedure Act because the president isn’t an agency, the filing said.

The Justice Department also stressed the executive directive’s temporary nature, characterizing the order as a pause while the Interior Department reviews wind permitting and development practices.

The states are represented by their respective attorneys general offices.

The Department of Justice represents Trump and the federal agencies.

The case is New York v. Trump, D. Mass., No. 1:25-cv-11221, memorandum in opposition filed 5/29/25.