Jennings files brief in favor of US Wind project

Attorney General Kathy Jennings has filed a friend-of-the-court brief challenging the cancelation of the US Wind offshore project, which had received permits for turbines off the Delaware coast.

The brief is part of a lawsuit filed by Ocean City, Md., and other jurisdictions and groups in Maryland District Court challenging US Wind’s offshore project, which proposed to build up to 121 wind turbine generators to power an offshore substation with cables running near dunes and the parking lot of 3R’s Beach, under the Indian River Bay and to a substation constructed next to the Indian River Power Plant.

A separate complaint against the project has been filed in Delaware District Court, where the latest action was a motion to dismiss filed Oct. 27 by attorneys with US Wind.

In the Maryland District Court brief, Jennings wrote that President Donald J. Trump lacks the authority to “rescind or stall a project approved after over a decade of work and review and compliance,” and the approvals already given to the wind project are binding on the current administration.

“US Wind and the states of Maryland and Delaware, in good faith reliance on those approvals, have moved toward project implementation. The injunction sought by US Wind would preserve the status quo and allow the project to proceed to completion, as contemplated by the final approval,” she wrote.

In August, a filing in U.S. District Court of Delaware stated the U.S. Department of the Interior – a defendant in complaints in both Delaware and Maryland district courts – intends to move to voluntarily remand and vacate its approval of the Construction and Operations Plan for the offshore wind project.

The court then approved a stay in the Delaware case, pending the District of Maryland’s ruling on the motion to remand and vacate COP approval for the US Wind project. The latest action in the Maryland case involves a series of amicus briefs supporting the defendants filed by Jennings, steel workers, and other groups and unions.

Plaintiffs against the wind project include Ocean City and Fenwick Island officials, the Waterman’s Association of Worcester County, the White Marlin Open, and other hotel, tourist and water-related organizations.

Attorneys for US Wind filed a motion to dismiss a case in Delaware District Court Oct. 27, that was filed against the wind turbine project.