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The Trump administration has reversed its opposition to a $5bn offshore wind farm to protect jobs, but also as part of a political deal over a long-stalled gas pipeline, according to the boss of the energy group behind the project.
The White House issued a surprise order in April to halt work on Equinor’s Empire Wind development, an 84-turbine, 2.1 gigawatt project, 30 miles off the New York coast, even though construction was already under way and all permits had been secured. The project includes a 70-acre port terminal in Brooklyn and is one of the largest in the US.
President Donald Trump’s hostility to wind farms has been well documented — he once said they were “littered all over our country . . . like dropping garbage in a field” — but Equinor chief executive Anders Opedal said his team had received “good indications” that the administration would not target projects already in execution.
The administration’s targeting of the offshore wind sector has prompted other developers, including Shell and TotalEnergies, to reduce or slow down US projects, and Opedal indicated that the episode meant Norway’s state-backed Equinor was unlikely to pursue other projects.
Speaking about how he navigated the most politically fraught and potentially costly episode of his career Opedal said Equinor’s US management “had actually trained for a similar scenario”.
“We were surprised, but prepared,” said Opedal, recalling the late-afternoon call he received with the news while on holiday in southern Norway.
Equinor quickly formed two crisis teams: one to lobby for the order’s reversal, the other to prepare for a full shutdown. After an intervention from Jens Stoltenberg, Norway’s finance minister and former Nato chief, Opedal flew to Washington to meet Kevin Hassett, head of the US’s National Economic Council.
“We wanted the order lifted in a sustainable way,” said Opedal. “A federal judge could reverse it, but that would still leave uncertainty.”
Instead, the company emphasised the human cost of halting a project already under way. “If you stop a new offshore wind project, people just won’t get a job. But if you stop one in execution, people lose their jobs and that’s a big difference,” he said.
But political negotiations elsewhere were just as critical. Opedal said talks between New York State and the White House over a natural gas pipeline played a “very helpful” role in unlocking the project.
Trump had long sought approval for the Constitution pipeline — a $1bn project to carry gas from fields in Pennsylvania to New York and New England — but state regulators had blocked it on environmental grounds. The scheme was cancelled in 2020.
According to Opedal, New York governor Kathy Hochul reopened the conversation. “The governor called me and said: ‘I think I have an angle to talk to the administration on this’,” he said. She phoned again at 4am on May 18 to relay details of a meeting with Trump.
The following day, the stop-work order on Empire Wind was lifted. A week after that, the company behind the Constitution pipeline announced it was reviving its plans.
Opedal described the events as a “rollercoaster” but said it would not derail Equinor’s relationship with the US, where it is a major oil and gas producer in the Gulf of Mexico.
But, he added: “I don’t foresee that embarking on new offshore wind projects will be something that we do.”
