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The Trump administration will pay $1 billion to France’s TotalEnergies to divest from two US offshore wind leases as the administration ramps up its fight against offshore wind and other renewable energy.
TotalEnergies has agreed to pay back leases for offshore projects in North Carolina and New York, and will invest in fossil fuel projects, the Interior Department announced Monday.
President Donald Trump’s administration has tried to halt offshore wind construction, but federal judges have repeatedly struck down those orders.
The Interior Department praised the “new deal” with the French energy giant and said, “the American people will no longer be able to pay for ideological subsidies that have only benefited the unreliable and expensive offshore wind industry.”
Environmental groups criticized the deal as another way to block wind projects, with one group calling it a “billion dollar bribe” to kill clean energy.
Donald Trump has been trying to slow down the wind energy industry in the US, but as CBC News international climate reporter Susan Ormiston explains, America’s loss could be Canada’s gain.
“After losing several rounds in court over his illegal stoppage orders, Trump has found another way to choke the beach: pay them to go,” said Lena Moffitt, executive director of Evergreen Action.
In his second term, Trump has gone all-in on fossil fuels, which he has said will lower costs for families, increase reliability and help the US maintain global leadership in artificial intelligence.
US President Donald Trump’s apparent shift to green energy – particularly offshore wind – has some Newfoundlanders and Labradorians worried about the impact on their future. The port of Argentina serves as an infrastructure transition point for wind energy projects in the United States. CBC’s Carolyn Stokes has that story.
TotalEnergies had already put two of its projects on hold after Trump’s election.
The company pledged not to develop new offshore wind projects in the United States. CEO Patrick Pouyanné said in a statement that TotalEnergies abandoned the development of offshore wind in the United States in return for lease payments, “considering that the development of offshore wind projects is not in the country’s interest.”
Pouyanné said the lease returns will finance the construction of a liquefied natural gas plant in Texas and the development of its oil and gas operations, calling it a “great use of capital” in the US.
After it makes that investment, TotalEnergies will be reimbursed, up to the amount paid for the offshore wind lease, according to the Interior Department.
“We welcome TotalEnergies’ commitment to developing reliable, affordable energy projects to lower Americans’ monthly bills,” Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said in a statement.
‘Outrageous abuse of taxpayer dollars’
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, said Trump is “using an impunity program” to pressure a French company not to build an offshore wind farm, calling it a “sad waste of taxpayer dollars.” Hochul said he remains committed to moving forward with a “superior approach” that includes renewables, nuclear power and other energy sources.
North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein, a Democrat, said this is “a terrible deal for the people of North Carolina and for our country.”
“Our region has offshore wind power to power millions of homes with American-made renewable energy. It is ridiculous and wasteful that the Trump administration is using $1 billion of taxpayer money to pay a company to prevent it from investing private dollars to create the clean energy we need,” Stein said in a statement.
The Biden administration wants to increase offshore wind as a solution to climate change. Trump began changing America’s energy policies on his first day in office with executive orders aimed at developing oil, gas and coal. Globally the offshore wind market is growing, with China leading the world in new installations.
The Interior Department halted construction of five large wind turbines on the East Coast just days before Christmas, citing national security concerns. The developers and the states sued, and federal judges allowed all five projects to resume construction, essentially concluding that the government had not shown an imminent risk that construction should stop.
On Monday, one of the wind farms targeted by the administration, Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind, began delivering power to Virginia’s grid. The developer, Richmond-based Dominion Energy, announced the milestone.
East Coast states are building offshore wind because it increases the availability of affordable electricity from the grid, even as natural gas prices rise, said Ted Kelly, director of clean energy at the Environmental Defense Fund.
TotalEnergies purchased the lease for its Carolina Long Bay project in 2022 for approximately $133 million. It aimed to generate more than one gigawatt there, enough to power about 300,000 homes. It bought a rental property in New York and New Jersey, also in 2022, for $795 million US. This was planned as a massive project, capable of generating three gigawatts of clean energy to power nearly a million homes.
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