Trump’s decision to halt new permits for offshore wind and pause construction of New York’s Empire Wind project puts thousands of local jobs at risk and jeopardizes the promise of a $12 billion economic boost to the state.

A model wind turbine during a 2022 press conference at the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal, where officials announced plans to transform the site “into one of the largest offshore wind port facilities in the nation.” (Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office)

The Empire State is standing up to President Donald Trump’s attacks on the development of offshore wind farms.

“New York is not backing down without a fight,” Gov. Kathy Hochul said on Monday after Attorney General Letitia James filed a lawsuit to stop an executive order that suspended new leasing and permitting for wind projects.

And it may not be the only legal challenge on the horizon. 

Offshore wind developer Equinor is also considering suing the Trump administration after the president halted work in mid-April on its New York based wind farm, Empire Wind 1. Although it took 14 years to secure federal approvals for the venture, the administration claimed the process had been “rushed” and all work needed to stop on site until “further review is completed.”

Trump, who received record donations from fossil fuel industry groups on the campaign trail, has pitted himself against the generation of non-polluting electricity through renewable sources like wind and promised to drill for more oil and gas instead. 

But offshore wind advocates in New York challenge the President’s claims that he is ushering in a “golden age” of economic prosperity. Halting wind projects is actually bad for the economy and threatens local jobs, they say.

If New York makes the five offshore wind solicitations it has in the pipeline a reality, it would generate a “combined economic impact of more than $12.1 billion” across the state, according to state authorities. And it would “support more than 6,800 jobs” with “average salaries of approximately $100,000 per year.”

On the local level, New York City’s South Brooklyn Marine Terminal, an industrial port in Sunset Park, was slated to become an operational and maintenance hub for Empire Wind and other offshore ventures. These plans are part of a larger push to transform the industrial zone, which has long been overlooked for economic investment, into what the city calls “a prime destination for environmentally sustainable industry.”

“The Trump Administration’s stop-work order on the Empire Wind 1 project—and offshore wind generally—is a devastating hit to South Brooklyn’s economy as well as the nation’s,” said New York Congressman Dan Goldman in an email.

The project was set to result in $195 million in income for New Yorkers. On the state level, it would inject $1.6 billion into New York’s economy during the planning and construction phases of the project, the developer Equinor notes. 

“By halting this fully permitted, fully financed, American-made project, President Trump not only hurts working families in Brooklyn, he stalls a major opportunity for long-term economic growth in our region,” Goldman added.

Drone footage of the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal site, which officials planned to turn into “one of the largest offshore wind port facilities in the nation.” Courtesy of Equinor.

Local jobs in limbo

When Christopher Erikson, business manager for Local Union No. 3, which represents employees at the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal (SBMT), heard that a stop work order was issued on Empire Wind, he was sorely disappointed. 

Construction on the SBMT, which has already employed over 1,500 people and sought to power half a million New York homes with clean energy, was more than 50 percent complete.

“We were anticipating this work opportunity for such a long time and to see it almost come to fruition, only to have the rug pulled out from under us, was disappointing to say the least,” Erikson told City Limits. 

The facility was on its way to becoming an assembly and maintenance hub for turbines that would be later ferried out and installed at sea to capture wind and generate electricity.

“But we live to fight another day,” Erickson said, pointing out that while Equinor has halted work offshore to comply with the stop-work order, it continues construction on building out the SBMT facility on land.

The decision to pause offshore construction was given after Trump’s Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum instructed the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), which is responsible for issuing the permits, to “cease all construction activities” on the project. Burgum claimed on social media site X that he had received information “that suggests the Biden administration rushed through its approval without sufficient analysis.”

While BOEM didn’t comment on the stop-order, it stated in a letter that Empire Wind may not “resume activities” until the agency has completed its “necessary review” of the approved permits.

But Equinor’s Empire Wind, which Gov. Hochul described as a “fully federally permitted” venture, reportedly underwent a 14-year permitting process. The federal review for setting up in the New York area began in 2011. Equinor then obtained its first lease for the project in 2017 during Trump’s first presidency, and its final federal approval in 2024.

In the end, pausing a project that has been over a decade in the making will have direct implications for workers and the surrounding community relying on the future cash flow. 

Equinor signed a Project Labor Agreement (PLA) for the construction of SBMT that guaranteed “over 1,000 union construction jobs and apprenticeships in local New York communities,” the developer said in a press release. 

The agreement prioritizes hiring union members from the Sunset Park community, and secondarily, union members from New York City.

It also “includes a local hire requirement that gives priority to union members who are Section 3 New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) residents, veterans, and those who live in Sunset Park,” Equinor noted.

Bad for business

Not only were locals counting on job opportunities, but Equinor says about 100 current employees who were responsible for setting up the wind farm’s structure in the sea bed off shore had to stop working immediately and can’t count on a future paycheck.

“This really does affect people’s lives,” said Esther Rosario, executive director of the labor union coalition Climate Jobs NY.

“We can debate science or even the climate crisis but saying no to a project like this that is already underway is just bad for business,” she said. 

And construction at the SBMT isn’t the only part of the industry potentially taking a hit.

A federal grant awarded to the Educational and Cultural Trust Fund administered by Local Union No. 3 last September to build an onshore and offshore wind safety training facility in upstate Walden, NY, may now be at risk too.

The U.S. Economic Development Administration, which issued the grant, told staff at Local Union No. 3—who spoke to City Limits on condition of anonymity—that the decision to give them the money was “sent to Washington for further review.”

The facility would have made it more cost-effective for projects in the northeast to guarantee the Global Wind Organization certificate that employees need to work on a wind farm. Experts say there are only a handful of facilities in the U.S that issue the certificate, which needs to be renewed every two years, forcing employees to travel long distances and spend more to secure the training. 

The bottom line, members of the environmental community say, is that Trump’s interference in the offshore wind industry could scare off future investors and cost the country money on other business transactions.

“This is essentially the government assuming control of privately owned assets. It is the worst thing a leader can do for broader investment or foreign direct investment,” said Vanessa Fajans-Turner, executive director of Environmental Advocates New York.

“It sends out the message to other companies that there is a strong chance that even if they have all of the legal permissions they need on a project, [the government] can still block their ability to follow through and make good on their investments,” she added. 

To reach the reporter behind this story, contact Mariana@citylimits.org. To reach the editor, contact Jeanmarie@citylimits.org

Want to republish this story? Find City Limits’ reprint policy here.

The post ‘Bad for Business’: What Trump’s Plan to Halt Offshore Wind Means for New York’s Economy appeared first on City Limits.

By SAM MEDNICK, Associated Press

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — The Gaza Strip will likely fall into famine if Israel doesn’t lift its blockade and stop its military campaign, food security experts said in a stark warning on Monday.

Nearly half a million Palestinians are facing possible starvation, living in “catastrophic” levels of hunger, and 1 million others can barely get enough food, according to findings by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, a leading international authority on the severity of hunger crises.

The group said “there is a high risk” of outright famine if circumstances don’t change.

Israel has banned all food, shelter, medicine and any other goods from entering the Palestinian territory for the past 10 weeks, even as it carries out waves of airstrikes and ground operations. Gaza’s population of around 2.3 million people relies almost entirely on outside aid to survive, because Israel’s 19-month-old military campaign has wiped away most capacity to produce food inside the territory.

Desperate scenes as food is running out

Food supplies are emptying out dramatically. Communal kitchens handing out cooked meals are virtually the only remaining source of food for most people in Gaza now, but they too are rapidly shutting down for lack of stocks.

Thousands of Palestinians crowd daily outside the public kitchens, pushing and jostling with their pots to receive lentils or pasta.

“We end up waiting in line for four, five hours, in the sun. It is exhausting,” said Riham Sheikh el-Eid, waiting at a kitchen in the southern city of Khan Younis on Sunday. “At the end, we walk away with nothing. It is not enough for everybody.”

The lack of a famine declaration doesn’t mean people aren’t already starving, and a declaration shouldn’t be a precondition for ending the suffering, said Chris Newton, an analyst for the International Crisis Group focusing on starvation as a weapon of war.

“The Israeli government is starving Gaza as part of its attempt to destroy Hamas and transform the strip,” he said.

Israel demands a new aid system

The office of Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, did not respond to a request for comment. The army has said that enough assistance entered Gaza during a two-month ceasefire that Israel shattered in mid-March when it relaunched its military campaign.

Israel says the blockade aims to pressure Hamas to release the hostages it still holds. It says it won’t let aid back in until a new system giving it control over distribution is in place, accusing Hamas of siphoning off supplies. The United States says it is working up a new mechanism that will start deliveries soon, but it has given no timeframe.

The United Nations has so far refused to participate. It denies substantial diversion of aid is taking place and says the new system is unnecessary, will not meet the massive needs of Palestinians and will allow aid to be used as a weapon for political and military goals.

Monday’s report said that any slight gains made during the ceasefire have been reversed. Nearly the entire population of Gaza now faces high levels of hunger, it said, driven by conflict, the collapse of infrastructure, destruction of agriculture, and blockades of aid.

Mahmoud Alsaqqa, food security and livelihoods coordinator for Oxfam, called on governments to press Israel to allow “unimpeded humanitarian access.”

“Silence in the face of this manmade starvation is complicity,” he said.

Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas after the group’s Oct. 7, 2023, surprise attack on Israel, in which militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 251 hostage, most of whom have been released in ceasefire agreements or other deals.

Israel’s offensive has killed over 52,000 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, whose count does not distinguish between civilians or combatants.

Three criteria for declaring famine

The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, first set up in 2004 during the famine in Somalia, groups more than a dozen U.N. agencies, aid groups, governments and other bodies.

It has only declared famine a few times — in Somalia in 2011, and South Sudan in 2017 and 2020, and last year in parts of Sudan’s western Darfur region. Tens of thousands are believed to have died in Somalia and South Sudan.

It rates an area as in famine when at least two of three things occur: 20% of households have an extreme lack of food, or are essentially starving; at least 30% of children six months to five years suffer from acute malnutrition or wasting, meaning they’re too thin for their height; and at least two people or four children under five per every 10,000 are dying daily due to starvation or the interaction of malnutrition and disease.

The assessment on Monday found that the first threshold was met in Gaza, saying 477,000 people — or 22% of the population — are classified as in “catastrophic” hunger, the highest level, for the period from May 11 to the end of September.

It said more than 1 million people are at “emergency” levels of hunger, the second highest level, meaning they have “very high gaps” in food and high acute malnutrition.

The other thresholds were not met. The data was gathered in April and up to May 6. Food security experts say it takes time for people to start dying from starvation.

The report said if the blockade and military campaign continues, “the vast majority” in Gaza will not have access to food or water, civil unrest will worsen, health services will “fully collapse,” disease will spread, and levels of malnutrition and death will cross the thresholds into famine.

It had also warned of “imminent” famine in northern Gaza in March 2024, but the following month, Israel allowed an influx of aid under U.S. pressure after an Israeli strike killed seven aid workers.

Aid groups now say the situation is the most dire of the entire war. The U.N. humanitarian office, known as OCHA, said Friday that the number of children seeking treatment at clinics for malnutrition has doubled since February, even as supplies to treat them are quickly running out.

Aid groups have shut down food distribution for lack of stocks. Many foods have disappeared from the markets and what’s left has spiraled in price and is unaffordable to most. Farmland is mostly destroyed or inaccessible. Water distribution is grinding to a halt, largely because of lack of fuel.

Beth Bechdol, deputy director of the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization, said more than 75% of Gaza’s farmland had been damaged or destroyed, and two-thirds of the wells used for irrigation were no longer operating.

The destruction, she said, is “driving these large numbers of people closer towards the famine numbers that we think are possible.”

AP correspondents Wafaa Shurafa in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, Samy Magdy in Cairo and Sarah El Deeb in Beirut contributed to this report.

By MICHAEL R. SISAK and LARRY NEUMEISTER, Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — Federal prosecutors will begin trying to prove Monday that Sean “Diddy” Combs turned his hip-hop conglomerate into a racketeering enterprise that forced women to satisfy his sexual desires for two decades.

Testimony in Combs’ New York trial could begin as soon as the afternoon following a final phase of jury selection in the morning and opening statements from the lawyers.

Combs, 55, has pleaded not guilty to a five-count indictment that could land him in prison for at least 15 years if he is convicted on all charges. He has been imprisoned at a federal jail in Brooklyn since his arrest in September.

Lawyers for the three-time Grammy winner say prosecutors are wrongly trying to make a crime out of a party-loving lifestyle that may have been indulgent, but was not illegal.

Prosecutors say Combs coerced women into drugged-up group sexual encounters, then kept them in line through violence. He is accused of choking, hitting, kicking and dragging women, often by the hair.

Combs’ former girlfriend, the R&B singer Cassie, is expected to be among the trial’s early witnesses.

She filed a lawsuit in 2023 saying Combs had subjected her to years of abuse, including beatings and rape. The lawsuit was settled within hours of its filing, but it touched off a law enforcement investigation and was followed by dozens of lawsuits from people making similar claims.

Prosecutors plan to show jurors video a security camera video of Combs beating Cassie in the hallway of a Los Angeles hotel in 2016.

Jurors may also see recordings of events called “Freak Offs,” where prosecutors say women had sex with male sex workers while Combs filmed them. The indictment said the events sometimes lasted days and participants required IV-drips to recover.

Combs’ attorney, Marc Agnifilo, has said that the Bad Boy Records founder was “not a perfect person” and was undergoing therapy, including for drug use, before his arrest.

But he and other lawyers for Combs have argued that any group sex was consensual and any violence was an aberration.

After the video of Combs assaulting Cassie in the hotel aired on CNN last year, Combs apologized and said he took “full responsibility” for his actions. “I was disgusted then when I did it. I’m disgusted now.”

The Associated Press doesn’t generally identify people who say they are victims of sexual abuse unless they come forward publicly, as Cassie, whose legal name is Casandra Ventura, has done.

The trial is expected to last at least eight weeks.

It’s the sort of day where you can tell that the state Capitol is bustling with civic activity well before you pass through the security checkpoints. Even by 10 o’clock this sunny March morning, the main parking garage is full. Charter buses, which carried Texans to their capital city from destinations hundreds of miles away, are parked all along the streets. 

On almost every one of the 140 days that the Texas Legislature meets for its biennial session, citizens make the pilgrimage to the pink granite-domed Capitol to engage in activism, persuasion, and admonition. Sometimes they are there of their own individual democratic volition; more often they mobilize on behalf of an organized advocacy group. 

Demonstrators march and gather near the Capitol following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in June 2022. (AP Photo/Eric Gay, File)

The marquee event is the Texas House Public Education Committee’s hearing on House Bill 3, the lower chamber’s proposed school voucher program. It’s a historic day as a school voucher bill is on track to pass through the House for the first time ever. For the hundreds of pro-“school choice” Texans who’ve traveled there to provide a show of mass popular support, it’s a joyous occasion. For the hundreds of opponents—public school teachers, parents, and other activists who’ve shown up to voice their urgent rebukes—it’s an ominous one. 

The Capitol Extension, an underground complex that sits below the north grounds, first opened back in 1993, nearly doubling the building’s square footage. Here there are 16 committee hearing rooms, conference rooms, an auditorium, a gift shop, and, of course, the popular Capitol Grill cafeteria, which this day is serving frito pies, loaded baked potatoes, and other standard fare.

This is the hive. The cavernous hallways, with terrazzo floors that mirror those in the Capitol proper, and the four-story inverted rotunda are filled with a constant stream of people wandering in large groups, or beelining for a destination—like a shopping mall of democracy. 

Pro-immigrant protesters outside the Texas Capitol in 2017 (Sam DeGrave)

The professionals are easy to pick out from the unwashed masses, who are often all wearing the same colored t-shirts with matching slogans. The lawmakers, dressed in sharp suits or fitted dresses, are often walking briskly with a small entourage of staffers. The lobbyists, typically wearing far more expensive attire, are often the ones sitting on the benches that line the hallways—glued to their phones. On this day, Governor Greg Abbott’s former top aide, now one of the most sought-after lobbyists in Austin, is in an alcove wearing earbuds. 

In the auditorium, about 100 home-schooling families are listening to the Texas Home School Coalition go through a legislative primer on their top priority this session: House Joint Resolution 155, a constitutional amendment to enshrine the right to homeschool in the Texas Constitution. “Freedom is fragile,” Jeremy Newman, the coalition’s vice president of policy, tells the crowd. “We know this because home schooling was illegal in the ’70s and ’80s. We know people now who were in jail because of this.” 

The group has to wrap up its briefing early, apparently so as not to interfere with the governor’s own pro-voucher press event, which is being held at the swanky downtown office of the Texas Public Policy Foundation. With that, the crowd takes their packet of information flyers, streams out of the auditorium, and into the maze of hallways that contain legislators’ offices. 

Pro-Palestine demonstrators ride horses just south of the Capitol in February 2024 (Gus Bova)

Around this time, the Texas Freedom Network is leading an anti-voucher rally on the south steps of the Capitol—the designated area for sanctioned rallies, protests, and press conferences. The granite stairs include a natural “riser” that makes for a perfect stage. For an hourly electricity fee of $35, organizers can plug in their microphones and speakers. For a $50 fee, the State Preservation Board—which is responsible for maintaining all activities on the grounds—can provide a lectern or chairs. 

Shortly after the anti-voucher rally, the gun nuts gather around the south side for a rally to push back against the tyranny of so-called red flag laws in Texas and across the nation. A few dozen members of the Gun Owners of America are in attendance, many donning little red flags attached to their caps. Among the VIP attendees there to help rally the troops are tea party firebrand and Dallas County GOP Chair Allen West, plus Kyle Rittenhouse, who moved to Texas a few years ago after becoming a celebrity in the gun rights movement. The event is sponsored by Patriot Mobile, the premier cell-phone carrier for conservatives and an ardent booster of Christian nationalist politics in Texas. 

Alas, much of what may appear to be grassroots advocacy is in reality heavily engineered. But there is plenty of more organic citizen engagement too. When encountered, it can serve as a much needed salve for the cynicism that comes from closely following the Texas Legislature. 

Family members of those killed in the Robb Elementary School shooting carry a Day of the Dead altar from the Capitol to the Governor’s Mansion in November 2022. (Gus Bova)

Consider Nicholas Gresham, the operator of a small hemp business in East Texas. It’s also a lobby day for the Texas Cannabis Collective. He’s here today to push lawmakers to vote against one of the Senate’s top priorities—Senate Bill 3—that would outright ban any THC products in the state. 

When he heard that the Senate was holding a public hearing on the bill a couple weeks earlier, he felt compelled to leave his wife and newborn in the NICU at a Dallas hospital to drive to Austin to testify. Before the committee, he chastised lawmakers for trying to pull the rug out from under a burgeoning legal hemp industry. 

He came back again on Tuesday to drop off pro-hemp leaflets at legislators’ offices. For him, it’s a matter of protecting his livelihood. (The baby, by the way, is home and healthy now.)

Gresham may not be a high-powered lobbyist who can easily text with or wine-and-dine legislators. And much of his literature may likely end up in the recycling bin at the end of the day. But everyday Texans like him, who have something personal on the line, are essential to each and every legislative session. And you can count on them to keep showing up. 

The post  A Day in a Democracy appeared first on The Texas Observer.