New York Climate Week: Trump administration sued over offshore wind deals
Nine States have taken the administration to court over deals to cancel offshore wind leases
The Trump administration’s efforts to block the development of offshore wind projects has attracted fresh legal challenge, announced during New York Climate Week.
Over the past months, the Trump administration has sought to cancel leases for offshore wind energy projects. The settlement deals provide reimbursement of the lease amount on the condition that companies reinvest the amount in fossil fuel projects.
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State officials from Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Vermont have filed lawsuits challenging two settlement deals. California’s attorney general has filed a separate lawsuit along similar lines.
Total model
The administration’s efforts to block offshore wind development through such deals traces back to a deal with TotalEnergies signed in March this year.
The deal, cited by the administration as a model for subsequent agreements, included a $1bn reimbursement of lease fees in exchange for a commitment from TotalEnergies to invest the amount in oil and gas projects.
The New York-led coalition is targeting two settlement deals – one involving Bluepoint and another with Invenergy. Collectively, these deals represent a handover of $1.4bn of taxpayer funds to energy companies, according to a statement from New York’s attorney general Letitia James.
Pay-to-not-play
“These illegal backroom deals take money that should have gone toward lowering New Yorkers' bills and hand it to fossil fuel projects in other states, all while our energy demand continues to grow”, commented James.
The deal with Bluepoint Wind cancelled a lease off the coast of New York in exchange for a $765m reimbursement from the Judgement Fund – a taxpayer financed fund. The same fund was, according to court filings, used in the $653m deal with Invenergy. The latter included three cancelled leases, one of which was off the coast of New York.
New York governor Kathy Hochul warned the administration’s efforts amount to a ‘pay-to-not-play scheme’ and an ‘outrageous abuse of taxpayer dollars’.
California’s state officials have also filed a parallel lawsuit against the Trump administration’s deal with Invenergy – which also involved a $111m lease off the coast of California. California attorney general Rob Bonta echoed concerns from his New York counterpart – alleging that the deals amounted to an abuse of taxpayer funds.
“At a time when we need more reliable, clean energy, President Trump is trying to send $111 million to his fossil fuel industry friends and wants taxpayers and working families to cover the tab”, Bonta said, “this outrageous abuse of taxpayer dollars will damage the offshore wind industry and create unnecessary obstacles to clean and reliable energy powering our homes and economies”.
The administration’s hostility towards offshore wind energy has implications for investors backing the projects. In 2025 when Ørsted’s Revolution Wind project received a stop-work order, AkademikerPension CIO Anders Schelde said the hostility had no ‘underlying logic’. “It is political risk on steroids – and that kind of risk is extremely hard to grasp, which makes it very bad news for the stock”, Schelde said at the time.
