Six states filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration to block a deal that would pay TotalEnergies nearly $1 billion to abandon two offshore wind projects off New York and North Carolina and invest in oil and gas instead. The states argue the agreement i
For workers watching offshore construction crews push into the water off New York’s coast, the message landed like a detour that was never meant to be temporary: the lease cancellation was coming, and it would come with a price tag paid by taxpayers.
On Tuesday. six states sued the Trump administration over its decision to cancel a major offshore wind lease off the coast of New York. The case was led by Letitia James. New York’s attorney general. alongside attorneys general from Connecticut. Maine. Massachusetts. New Jersey. Rhode Island. and Vermont.
The dispute traces back to a March announcement by federal officials: nearly $1 billion in taxpayer dollars would be paid to French energy firm TotalEnergies in exchange for the company killing plans to erect two offshore windfarms off New York and North Carolina. Under the agreement. TotalEnergies would terminate the projects and pledge not to develop any new offshore wind projects in the United States. The company also agreed to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in oil and gas projects.
James said the deal was unlawful and framed it as an assault on jobs tied to clean energy. “The Trump administration is once again trying to kill clean energy projects and destroy good-paying jobs for New Yorkers. ” she said in a statement to the Guardian. In her view. the arrangement came only after federal courts repeatedly halted the president’s attempts to stop offshore wind development. James said the 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.”.
The lawsuit asks a court to strike down the agreement. halt the lease cancellation. and prevent Donald Trump officials from taking further steps to implement the deal. James and the other states argue the agreement violates the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act. which restricts the Interior department’s ability to cancel offshore wind leases. They also allege it breaches the Judgment Fund Act. which regulates appropriations used to pay court judgments. awards. and compromise settlements.
The legal fight also echoes what has already happened in court. According to the complaint’s premise. the administration’s agreement followed rulings by federal judges that repeatedly struck down the president’s executive orders and stop-work directives aimed at halting offshore wind development. describing those actions as unlawful and arbitrary.
Interior’s position has been clear. In March. Doug Burgum. the Secretary of the Interior. praised the deal as “another win for President Trump’s commitment to affordable and reliable energy for all Americans.” Burgum also called offshore wind “expensive. unreliable. environmentally disruptive. and subsidy-dependent. ” and said the projects had been forced on US taxpayers.
Offshore wind advocates argue the opposite—that the deal doesn’t just cancel turbines, it reshapes household costs. Green groups defended the worth of offshore wind, pointing to consumer impacts if the projects are removed. Sam Salustro. a senior vice-president of pro-offshore wind group Oceantic Network. said: “Paying to remove affordable. homegrown energy out of the equation leaves American consumers struggling to pay their electricity bills.”.
As the case heads into court, the central dispute is no longer only about turbines off the coast. It’s about whether the federal government can lawfully trade near-$1 billion in taxpayer money for a foreign company to abandon offshore wind while shifting investment toward oil and gas—at the same time that states say more than a thousand union jobs are at stake.
offshore wind TotalEnergies Trump administration Letitia James Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act Judgment Fund Act Montauk union jobs Oceantic Network