By Kennedy Maize
Having failed in the courts to kill offshore wind by ordering them to stop work without justification, the White House has concocted a new approach: use taxpayer dollars to buy them out. 
When Trump’s Interior Department told five major offshore wind projects to lay down their tools, multiple federal district courts told President Trump he had to comply with long-standing law, the Administrative Procedures Act. So the geniuses in the administration scratched their heads to come up with another way express the president’s long-standing, totally irrational hatred of wind power.
Their solution? Eureka, let’s pay the holders of the Interior Department-granted leases to give them up, for real money. They quickly focused on two leases held by French energy giant TotalEnergies.
Here’s how the Associated Press described the White House move: “The Trump administration will pay $1 billion to a French company to walk away from two U.S. offshore wind leases as the administration ramps up its campaign against offshore wind and other renewable energy.” Total will get what amounts to a refund for projects off the North Carolina and New York coasts. In return, Total will put the money into a Texas liquefied natural gas terminal and other, unspecified, oil and gas projects.
Here’s how the Interior Department described the arm-twisted deal: “TotalEnergies has committed to invest approximately $1 billion—the value of its renounced offshore wind leases—in oil and natural gas and LNG production in the United States. Following their new investment, the United States will reimburse the company dollar-for-dollar, up to the amount they paid in lease purchases for offshore wind…. TotalEnergies has pledged not to develop any new offshore wind projects in the United States.”
Here’s how Total described the deal where it relinquishes its Carolina Long Bay lease (Lease OCS-A 0545) and its New York Bight lease (Lease OCS-A 0538), both awarded in 2022: “TotalEnergies’ studies on these leases have shown that offshore wind developments in the United States, unlike those in Europe, are costly and might have a negative impact on power affordability for U.S. consumers. Since other technologies are available to meet the growing demand for electricity in the United States in a more affordable way, TotalEnergies considers there is no need to allocate capital to this technology in the U.S.”
Here’s how environmental group Evergreen Action described the deal: “Let’s call this what it is: a taxpayer-funded bribe to kill homegrown clean energy and hand the money straight to oil and gas executives. Trump is once again making Americans pay more for energy so his Big Oil donors can rake in even more profits. After losing again and again in court on his illegal stop-work orders, Trump has found another way to strangle offshore wind: pay them to walk away.”
The White House was delighted with the TotalEnergies deal, indicating it plans to use the ploy with other leaseholders in the future. The Financial Times reported last week, “The Trump administration is seeking to halt the remaining offshore wind projects in the US, offering buyouts to companies that are developing them in exchange for fossil-fuel investments. The Department of the Interior had held talks with several companies with offshore wind leases to persuade them to enact deals such as the one agreed with TotalEnergies on Monday, people familiar with the matter said.” 
Trump’s hatred of wind power — offshore wind in particular — dates back to 2006 in Scotland, where he was developing a high-end golf course in Aberdeenshire on the North Sea coast. The government of Scotland was developing a small wind farm in sea off of Trump’s planned links. Trump complained, “I want to see the ocean, I do not want to see windmills.” Predictably, litigation ensued. It ended in 2019, with Trump the loser all along the way.
How will the new approach of attempting to buy out leaseholders work out? Serious questions around the policy could derail the effort, just as they upended his first approach.
Heatmap News has raised major questions about the latest anti-wind gambit, including legality and practicality.
Is it legal? The online news service, which focuses on climate issues, asserts that “there’s no reason to believe this strategy is any more legally sound than Trump’s stop work orders or permitting pause.” Heatmap interviewed Elizabeth Klein, Biden administration head of Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, “In virtually all of the instances so far, they are taking steps that are unlawful and certainly unprecedented.”
Neither the White House nor Interior have identified the legal authorities behind their agreement to buy off leaseholders. Lease holders may legally relinquish their leases, but Interior buying back the leases is a black hole. Klein said, “There’s no regulatory authorization that I am aware of that allows Interior to just refund the amount that a lease cost,” Klein said.
Where does the money come from? Interior can’t take the money it gets from lease sales and use it to buy out leases. Congress must appropriate the money. Article I, Section 9, Clause 7 of the United States Constitution states: “No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law….”
Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine), ranking Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee’s Interior subcommittee, questioned whether the payout is legal under appropriations law and said she would question Interior Secretary Doug Burgum about it at upcoming budget hearings.
Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), a member of the Senate Budget Committee, told the AP, “Giving an energy company $1 billion of taxpayer money to pack up its jobs and invest elsewhere — in the middle of an unpopular and unwise war that is spiking energy costs — is beyond idiotic.”
