In Surprise Reversal, Trump Admin Gives Empire Wind the Go-Ahead

Current conditions: More than 7 million Americans are under risk of tornadoes Tuesday, including in the Mississippi, Ohio, and Tennessee valleys • There is “dreary” weather ahead for the Northeast as rain and cold return • It will feel like 107 degrees Fahrenheit today in Xingtai, China, where the average this time of year is 86 degrees.

THE TOP FIVE

1. Trump administration lifts stop-work order on Empire Wind

The Trump administration has lifted its stop-work order on Empire Wind, an offshore wind project by Equinor that had already started construction south of New York’s Long Island when the Department of the Interior ordered it paused on April 16. New York’s governor, Democrat Kathy Hochul, apparently secured the agreement for construction to resume after three “roughly one-hour calls with President Donald Trump, the most recent on Sunday,” in which she emphasized the energy and job-creating benefits of the project, The Washington Post reports. In a statement, Marguerite Wells, executive director of the Alliance for Clean Energy, cheered the move, saying, “Today, I am reminded how proud I am to be a New Yorker. We thank Governor Hochul for being an early and continuous champion for offshore wind and for bringing her advocacy to the highest levels of government.”

As my colleagues Emily Pontecorvo and Jael Holzman previously reported, the stop-work order on Empire Wind had seriously jeopardized New York State’s chance of meeting its climate and clean energy goals, with offshore wind viewed as the route away from New York City’s reliance on fossil fuels. In AM yesterday, I also covered a report that the offshore wind industry was preparing to respond “with strength” to the roadblocks and opposition from the Trump administration. It reportedly cost Equinor $50 million per week to hold the project while the Trump administration deliberated its merits.

2. DOE cancels $8 billion in loans, including transmission project, low-income rooftop solar program

The Department of Energy plans to cancel seven major loans and loan guarantees, including a New Jersey transmission project and a low-income rooftop solar program, Semafor reports, per a “former DOE official close to the process.” The programs had all been conditionally approved under Biden, and also included a low-carbon ammonia factory by Monolith Nebraska, as well as a battery factory, a plastics recycling facility, and two others that had already been canceled by their developers. In sum, the canceled financing amounts to nearly $8.5 billion — which admittedly isn’t much of the roughly $41 billion in Biden-era LPO agreements that were yet unfinalized when Trump took office. At the same time, “it’s revealing that the administration would let these projects — most of which are in sectors where the U.S. is already far behind China — fall by the wayside, rather than take steps to prop them up,” Semafor’s Tim McDonnell notes.

3. Reconciliation bill removes ‘pay-to-play’ for expedited pipeline permitting

A House Rules Committee document points to potential changes to the reconciliation bill as negotiations continue — including, perhaps, to permitting. The original bill stipulated that CO2, hydrogen, and petroleum pipelines could pay a $10 million fee to bypass the standard permitting process, a move that critics decried as a “pay-to-play privilege for gas pipelines.” Activists and Democrats had slammed the provision, with Evergreen Action arguing it “makes a farce of our permitting process and essentially legalizes corruption,” and that “Americans will be severely impacted by gas pipelines built through their communities.” But in the new version of the bill, the language describing the expedited pipeline permitting “is gone,” Notus writes.

There is still a long way to go in negotiations, as hardliners and moderates remain at odds. The Rules Committee’s vote on a final version of the reconciliation bill is scheduled for 1 a.m. Wednesday morning, in order to stay on track for a possible floor vote this week — although others are skeptical of the feasibility of that timeline.

4. Clean energy manufacturing could add 453,000 jobs by the end of the decade: report

Clean power manufacturing is expected to grow from supporting 122,000 American jobs today to more than 575,000 by 2030 if all announced manufacturing facilities become operational, a new report by the American Clean Power Association found. The report similarly expects the economic output generated by those facilities to grow from contributing $18 billion to the U.S. GDP today to $86 billion by the end of the decade. “Today’s report shows that the manufacturing activities across the clean energy sector drive a ripple effect of economic growth that extends far beyond factory walls, reaching every corner of the country,” Jason Grumet, the CEO of ACP, said in a statement.

While clean energy manufacturing has taken a hit under the Trump administration, with more than $8 billion in projects canceled, closed, or downsized in the first quarter of 2025 due to concerns about access to Inflation Reduction Act tax credits and loan financing, as well as greater economic turbulence, ACP found that many investments are concentrated in rural areas and Republican states. With 200 manufacturing facilities in the pipeline, the report calls for preserving energy tax credits, “facilitating a true all-of-the-above energy strategy,” and creating “a stable and strategic trade environment,” among other policies.

5. Germany reverses position, will treat nuclear as on par with other renewables

An anti-nuclear protest near Lingen, Germany, in 2023.David Hecker/Getty Images

Germany’s longtime opposition to treating nuclear power on par with renewables in EU energy policy appears to have ended. France, which gets about 70% of its power from atomic energy, had long pushed for broader adoption in Europe — and been stymied by Germany’s former chancellor, Olaf Scholz, who was skeptical of labeling atomic energy “green.” But the nation will pivot to join France under Germany’s new conservative chancellor, Friedrich Merz, leaving Austria as the last remaining holdout in the EU, Reuters reports. “When France and Germany agree, it is much easier for Europe to move forward,” Lars-Hendrik Röller, who served as chief economic adviser to former German Chancellor Angela Merkel, told the Financial Times. The pivot is not just about meeting energy needs, however; as one German official also told FT, “We are now actually finally open to talk to France about nuclear deterrence for Europe. Better late than never.”

THE KICKER

“I only drained about 25 miles of range from the battery after powering my fridge and other devices for days.” —Scooter Doll, writing for Electrek about how he used his Rivian R1S as a backup energy source for three days after last week’s tornadoes knocked out his power.