Connecticut and Rhode Island are suing the Trump administration to restart construction on a massive offshore wind project designed to bring down electric bills.

The U.S. Interior Department abruptly shut down work on Revolution Wind two weeks ago – even though the $4 billion project is almost finished.

“Get out of the way. Let us finish the project,” said Connecticut Attorney General William Tong.

Both states are asking a judge to issue a preliminary injunction allowing construction to resume immediately. The Interior Department ordered all work to stop on Aug. 22, pending a “national security” review.

"People with bad ulterior motives against the United States would launch a swarm drone attack through a wind farm,” Interior Secretary Doug Burgum told CNN last Tuesday. “There’s concerns about radar relative to undersea, And that doesn’t have to be a large Russian sub, but undersea drones.”

Tong called the argument "garbage."

“This project was fully approved and permitted, and all concerns about the environmental impacts and the national security impacts were addressed during the permitting process,” he told reporters on Thursday. “It’s bonkers, okay? It doesn’t make any sense. What are you talking about? We’re almost done.”

President Donald Trump is a vocal critic of offshore wind.

“We will drill, baby, drill,” he said during his inauguration speech.

Trump placed a moratorium on all new projects just after taking office, and Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” speeds up the end of tax credits for wind and solar projects.

“Under Joe Biden’s Green New Scam, offshore wind projects were given unfair, preferential treatment while the rest of the energy industry was hindered by burdensome regulations," White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers told the Associated Press on Thursday. “President Trump’s Day 1 executive order instructed agencies to review leases and permitting practices for wind projects with consideration for our country’s growing demands for reliable energy, effects on energy costs for American families, the importance of marine life and fishing industry and the impacts on ocean currents and wind patterns."

Interior Department spokesperson Elizabeth Peace told the AP that the department doesn’t comment on pending litigation.

In separate recent federal court filings, the administration said it was reconsidering approvals for three other wind farms that could power nearly 2.5 million homes in Maryland, Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

Revolution Wind is slated to power 350,000 homes across Connecticut and Rhode Island beginning next year. Danish developer Ørsted said that 45 of 65 offshore wind turbines – assembled by 2,500 workers – are already completed.

The company filed its own lawsuit in the District of Columbia on Thursday.

“While Revolution Wind will continue to seek to work collaboratively with the Administration and other stakeholders toward a prompt resolution, it believes that BOEM lacked legal authority for the stop-work order and that the stop-work order’s stated basis violated applicable law,” developers said in a statement. “The project is facing substantial harm from continuation of the stop-work order, and as a result, litigation is a necessary step.”

Even some critics of wind power backed the lawsuit.

“I don’t support wind in general, but that's a project that is 80% completed,” said Connecticut House Republican leader Vin Candelora (R-North Branford). “So I think that it's a project that needs to continue.”

Connecticut has also invested more than $300 million in State Pier upgrades to build wind turbines – three times more than the original cost estimate.

Despite the lawsuit, Gov. Ned Lamont is still trying to reach a compromise with The White House.

“I think there’s a deal to be had. And I have to see what the ask is,” Lamont said last Monday. “I have no idea what the ask is. I knew what it was for [Gov.] Kathy Hochul down in New York.”

In April, the Interior Department issued a similar pause on the Empire Wind project off Long Island. But construction was allowed to resume a month later, after Hochul reportedly dropped opposition to a new natural gas pipeline through New York state.

On Wednesday, Rhode Island Gov. Dan McKee requested a in-person meeting with Trump.

“The State of Rhode Island, Ørsted, and other private partners have already invested millions,” McKee wrote in a letter to administration officials. “And Rhode Island is not alone, I’ve been working closely with fellow governors, including Gov. Lamont, who share our concerns about the stop-work order.”

Some Republicans said negotiations should come before lawsuits.

“Taking politics out of it, our goal should be finding a common sense solution that’s going to make energy more affordable here in Connecticut,” said state Senate GOP leader Stephen Harding (R-Brookfield).

But Tong said legal action is the only route that has worked before.

“There’s some initial talk about, ‘Maybe we can work this out,’” he said. “But more often than not, they just string us along with a bunch of nonsense. And the only thing they respond to is strength.”