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When the French energy firm TotalEnergies took a buyout of almost $1 billion from the Trump administration in return for walking away from from two federal offshore wind leases, it walked straight into a world of trouble. Now seven East Coast states are suing the Trump administration in federal court over the deal, with New York in the lead joined by Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Vermont.
A World Of Trouble Over Two Offshore Wind Leases
For reasons best known only to himself, US President Donald Trump has gone after the domestic wind industry with a buzzsaw. The offshore sector is particularly vulnerable because it depends almost entirely on lease areas auctioned and administered by the US Department of the Interior.
Upon taking office last year, Trump announced a halt to all new offshore wind leases, a prerogative later affirmed by a federal judge. That same judge, though, also determined that the Trump administration has no authority to suspend existing leases for spurious re-reviews.
Additionally, other federal judges have prevented Trump from stopping work on five East Coast projects that were already well into the construction phase as of last year: the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind Project, Vineyard Wind in Massachusetts, Revolution Wind in Rhode Island with Connecticut as a partner, and two New York projects, Empire Wind and Sunrise Wind.
Undeterred by the series of losses, Trump decided to deploy money to pry other existing lease holders away from their projects, and TotalEnergies was the first such experiment. Citing undefined national security concerns, the Trump administration offered TotalEnergies almost $1 billion to drop its claim on a lease area in New York, and another in North Carolina.
TotalEnergies accepted the deal, and the Democratic US Senator from Rhode Island, Sheldon Whitehouse, was among those not taking the news sitting down. In a letter dated April 9, Whitehouse told TotalEnergies CEO Patrick Pouyanné to prepare for a fight.
Among other issues, Whitehouse charged that the agreement with the Trump administration “appears to suffer from a lack of legally available or appropriated funding.”
“Ranking Member Whitehouse also warned of possible violations of the Antideficiency Act, which ‘prohibits federal agencies from obligating or expending federal funds in advance or in excess of an appropriation,’” Whitehouse’s office added in a press statement on April 13.
“No matter how much President Trump and his officials may claim that offshore wind is more expensive and less reliable than fossil fuel energy, those claims are simply false,” Whitehouse further emphasized.
Seven US States Take The Gloves Off
In his capacity as Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, Whitehouse demanded that TotalEnergies produce details about the deal. TotalEnergies ignored the demand, though much of the relevant information soon became available publicly. That kickstarted a reaction by Democratic members of the House Committee on Natural Resources and the House Committee on the Judiciary, who demanded an explanation from Pouyanné in a letter dated April 29.
“The Department of the Interior (DOI) paid your company a nearly $1 billion corporate handout with taxpayer money under indefensible and possibly illegal terms,” advised Ranking Members Jared Huffman and Jamie Raskin.
“Buried in the settlement agreement is a clause that unconstitutionally attempts to keep any court from ever reviewing it,” they added.
New York Attorney General Letitia James announced a lawsuit against the Trump administration, in which she asked the court to cancel the agreement, return the lease area in New York to TotalEnergies, and prevent the Trump administration from any further interference with the lease. Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Vermont also joined the lawsuit.
“After repeatedly losing in court, this administration cooked up a sham deal to pay a foreign energy company hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to abandon offshore wind and invest in oil and gas instead,” charged AG James in a press statement.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul also chipped in her two cents. “This pay-not-to-play scheme pressuring a foreign company to forego planned offshore wind projects in America in favor of gas and oil drilling is an outrageous abuse of taxpayer dollars that hurts our ability to meet our energy needs, create good jobs, and help secure American energy independence while reducing emissions,” Governor Hochul said.
“Attorney General James and I will continue to aggressively fight back against Donald Trump’s overt and never-ending hostility toward offshore wind,” she added for good measure.
No word yet on whether or not North Carolina AG Jeff Jackson will pursue the Trump administration over the buyout of the TotalEnergies lease area for the proposed 1.2-gigawatt Carolina Long Bay project, but AG James certainly has the receipts for her state. In her press statement, she points out that the New York lease area was to be developed by the Attentive Energy branch of TotalEnergies in two parts, with Attentive Energy One going to New York City and Attentive Energy Two going to New Jersey.
“The Attentive Energy One project was estimated to deliver $25.6 billion in economic benefits to New York state over its 25-year life, including $10 billion in savings on New Yorkers’ energy bills. The project was also expected to create an estimated 1,716 new jobs in New York,” James emphasized.
“Offshore wind is a critical part of New York’s plan to meet growing electricity demand, especially in New York City, where Attentive Energy One was expected to deliver power directly,” James further notes.
Trump Administration Violates The Law, So What Else Is New?
As for the specifics of the lawsuit, James and the six other AGs point out that the Interior Department has no authority to cancel offshore wind leases at the drop of a hat. “The DOI must hold a hearing, specifically find that continuing the lease would likely cause serious harm to life, property, national security, or the environment, and determine that the benefits of cancellation outweigh the benefits of allowing the lease to continue,” they assert, noting that failure to hold hearings is a violation of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act.
The seven AGs also reiterate points made by Whitehouse, Huffman, and Rasking regarding the purported source of money for the buyouts, that being the Judgement Fund administered by the Department of Justice. “The coalition also argues that the deal violates the Judgment Fund Act because the $795 million payment was not a legitimate compromise settlement in an imminent lawsuit, but rather a contrived arrangement to satisfy the president’s personal opposition to wind energy,” James explained.
Of course, the President has established a habit of ignoring constitutional requirements and legal restrictions without suffering any consequences from Congress, where members of the Republican party hold the majority in both the House and the Senate. As the majority party, they have the numbers and the authority to impeach and remove Trump from office. However, adding yet another lawsuit to the pile is hardly likely to change their behavior, or Trump’s.
Still, elections followers are eagerly anticipating a Democratic majority in the House after Election Day 2028, which could accomplish the impeachment end of things if not removal. And in the end, the wind will continue to blow long after Trump leaves office as scheduled on January 20, 2029 — peacefully this time, one hopes.
Photo: Offshore wind projects can bring hundreds of new jobs to their host states, as illustrated by the Sunrise Wind project in New York (cropped, courtesy of Sunrise Wind)
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