Trump pays offshore wind operators to walk away; Democrats call it a scam

When the Trump administration moved to reimburse offshore wind developers to end projects, Democrats in Congress said they began looking into whether the agreements break the law and whether the money is being used to undercut clean energy rather than promote it. The dispute centers on multiple lease buyout deals announced over the past months, including a TotalEnergies reimbursement tied to offshore wind leases off North Carolina and New York, and additional agreements announced Monday involving Bluepoint Wind and Golden State Wind.

In a letter sent Wednesday to TotalEnergies and made available to AP, Rep. Jared Huffman of California, the top Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee, and Rep. Jamie Raskin, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, told the company that Democrats had begun an investigation. The lawmakers said they were demanding documents and communications, and they advised the company’s chief executive not to take the money, framing the arrangement as a improper use of federal funds.

AP reported that under the deal made public in March, TotalEnergies would receive $1 billion—described as essentially a refund of its offshore wind leases off North Carolina and New York—if it invested the reimbursement in fossil fuel projects instead. Huffman called that arrangement a “scam” and said the administration planned to “light a lot of federal taxpayer money on fire if we let them.” In the same AP report, Huffman said, “You can’t come into the United States and do a backroom deal like this, that just essentially treats the treasury as a slush fund, and walk away with a billion dollars.”

TotalEnergies pointed to its own announcement when the payout was made public. CEO Patrick Pouyanné said at the time that the company renounced U.S. offshore wind development in exchange for reimbursement of lease fees, “considering that the development of offshore wind projects is not in the country’s interest.”

The administration’s agreements described by AP were not limited to the earlier TotalEnergies arrangement. In Monday’s latest deals, the Trump administration said Bluepoint Wind and Golden State Wind agreed to end their leases in exchange for reimbursements totaling nearly $900 million, with AP reporting that the companies would be required to invest equally in fossil fuels. Both wind projects are co-owned by Ocean Winds, a joint venture of EDP Renewables and Engie, AP said. Michael Brown, CEO of Ocean Winds North America, said that when market conditions change, “we must adapt.”

Some opponents of offshore wind projects praised the strategy. Robin Shaffer, president of Protect Our Coast New Jersey, said Wednesday that it was “a winner,” and she said the administration was “well within their rights to do this and private businesses can’t be forced to build anything.” In contrast, AP reported that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said the deals amounted to what he called “a bailout for fossil fuel donors dressed up as a deal,” arguing that the administration was handing nearly $2 billion in taxpayer dollars to companies to abandon clean energy projects.

AP said that once the deals are complete, Ocean Winds would have one remaining U.S. offshore wind project: SouthCoast Wind off Massachusetts, and it said the project’s development has slowed under Trump. Amber Hewett, senior director of offshore wind energy at the National Wildlife Federation, said forcing developers to abandon offshore wind for more oil and gas would set the country further behind on efforts to curb climate change, and she said burning coal, oil and gas is the largest contributor to global climate change.

The broader context for the buyouts, AP reported, is the Trump return to office and subsequent actions affecting wind development. When Trump returned to office in January 2025, his administration ordered a temporary halt to leasing and permitting for wind energy projects, paused work wind farms under construction, canceled plans for new offshore development in federal waters, and added additional review for wind and solar projects. AP said federal judges later allowed some construction to resume, struck down the Day One order blocking wind energy development, and prevented the administration from requiring that all solar and wind projects on federal lands and waters receive personal approval by Trump’s interior secretary.

Energy law expert Kristoffer Svendsen told AP that after the administration’s losses in court, the lease buyouts appear to be a last attempt to close down as many offshore wind projects as possible. He was not aware of other arrangements in which energy project owners had been paid to walk away, and he said, “This saga never ends. They continue to surprise the industry and those of us following the industry.” Svendsen said he expects energy companies to move to markets in Europe and Asia because, he said, the future for new offshore wind development in the United States is “quite bleak,” adding that “at this point if you’re interested in offshore wind, you’ll most likely go to a jurisdiction where they want you.”

In AP’s reporting, the global wind industry has continued to expand, with the Global Wind Energy Council reporting record onshore and offshore wind installations last year and saying that 138 countries now power their economies with wind energy. David Carroll, CEO and chief renewables officer for Engie North America, also told AP he expects offshore wind to struggle to advance in the United States in the next few years, citing what he described as the administration’s pulling of permits granted after years of work and money spent, and the stopping of fully permitted projects under construction, which he said erodes business certainty.