Trump Administration to Pay Energy Firm $1 Billion to Kill Wind Farms in Favor of Fossil Fuel Projects

The Trump administration will transfer roughly $1 billion in taxpayer dollars to a French energy company as part of a deal to cancel two planned offshore wind farms on the East Coast, reports Alex Brown in the Louisiana Illuminator.

“The French firm TotalEnergies will forfeit its leases for projects off the coasts of New York and North Carolina, with the United States paying $928 million to reimburse what the company initially spent on the leases.” The deal requires the company to reinvest the money into oil and gas projects, including one in Texas.

The administration has made multiple efforts to stop wind energy and other renewable projects, calling them “unreliable and costly.” As Brown notes, “Late last year, the Trump administration invoked classified national security threats to stop work on five wind farms that were under construction, but courts have ruled that the projects can proceed.”