The Trump administration has been paying billions in taxpayer funds to major energy companies to cancel offshore wind projects off the US coast. Instead of risking courtroom defeats over bans, the administration has been reimbursing developers for their lease costs in exchange for them shifting investments to natural gas and oil. Some of the projects were almost completely built.
For example the Trump administration paid the French energy giant TotalEnergies $928 million to abandon two major offshore wind projects off the coasts of New York and North Carolina, leases negotiated under Joe Biden. In exchange, the company pledged to reinvest the funds in U.S. oil and gas production and to forgo building any new U.S. offshore wind farms.
Last year the Trump administration last year attempted to end the construction of five wind farms along the east coast, each of which was already permitted. After states and developers filed lawsuits, courts ruled that each wind project should be able to proceed.
Lena Moffitt, executive director of the climate advocacy group Evergreen Action, called the new deal “a taxpayer-funded bribe to kill homegrown clean energy and hand the money straight to oil and gas executives”.
Kalikellett 