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State leaders demand explanation for stop-work order on

wind

project

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Grid operator warns delay risks reliability for 15 million

people

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Green Oceans group supports halt, citing flawed permitting

process

By Nichola Groom

Aug 25 (Reuters) - The Trump administration's order to

halt work on a nearly completed wind farm off the coast of Rhode

Island threatens grid reliability and jobs and defies

explanation, business and government leaders from New England

said on Monday.

State leaders in Connecticut and Rhode Island demanded details

from the administration about why it issued a stop-work order to

the Revolution Wind project late on Friday. In its letter to

project developer Orsted, the Bureau of Ocean Energy

Management cited unspecified national security concerns.

"They say there are national security interests here. Come

clean, reveal them," Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from

Connecticut, said at a press conference with fellow state

leaders on Monday. "And if you can't do it in public, give us a

briefing in private. We have top secret clearance."

A spokesperson for the Interior Department, which oversees

BOEM, declined to comment on the stop-work order.

ISO New England, which operates the grid in six states, and

North America's Building Trades Unions, an alliance of building

and construction unions, also raised concerns.

"The ISO is expecting this project to come online and it is

included in our analyses of near-term and future grid

reliability," the grid operator for 15 million people said.

"Delaying the project will increase risks to reliability."

NABTU said the order affected the jobs of 1,000 members.

"A 'stop-work order' is the fancy bureaucratic term, but it

means one thing: throwing skilled American workers off the job

after they've spent a decade training, building, and

delivering," NABTU President Sean McGarvey said in a statement.

Revolution Wind was scheduled to be completed next year and

produce enough electricity to power 350,000 homes in Rhode

Island and Connecticut. Shares of Orsted, which is based in

Denmark, sank to record lows on Monday.

U.S. President Donald Trump, a Republican, has repeatedly

criticized wind energy as ugly, unreliable and expensive. His

administration has taken steps to rein in wind development,

including launching a national security investigation into

imports of wind turbines and components.

Green Oceans, a Rhode Island group that opposes the project

due to concerns about its impact on coastal communities and

ocean habitats, said it was pleased with the order.

"This decisive action demonstrates that the federal

government finally recognizes the seriously flawed permitting

process that allowed this project and others to move forward,"

the group said.