President Donald Trump’s war on wind energy has run into a number of legal roadblocks over the last year and a half, making it increasingly difficult for the administration to deliver on his promise to prevent any new wind farms from being built during his second term.
So earlier this spring, the Interior Department came up with a creative way to stifle wind energy development: buying back leases previously awarded to energy companies.
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These effective buyout agreements, which the administration has framed as “reimbursements,” have been quite successful thus far, killing nine future wind farms on the East and West coasts to the tune of $2.7 billion.
Department officials announced the first deal in March, saying it would be paying French energy company TotalEnergies $928 million to cancel two of its federal water leases for offshore wind projects in the Carolina Long Bay and New York Bight Areas.
In exchange, TotalEnergies agreed to abandon the projects, invest the $928 million in natural gas and offshore oil infrastructure, and promise not to pursue any new offshore wind projects in the United States.
The second agreement was finalized in April, with the Interior Department announcing that it would be repaying developers of Bluepoint Wind off the coasts of New York and New Jersey and Golden State Wind off the coast of California.
The agency said it would be paying the developers $765 million and $120 million, respectively, which would then be reinvested in oil and natural gas projects. The developers also agreed not to pursue new wind projects in the U.S.
A third deal was struck in mid-June, resulting in the cancellation of four offshore wind leases previously granted to affiliates of Invenergy in the New York Bight, the Central Coast of California, and the Gulf of Maine.
Under this agreement, the Interior Department said it would be paying the affiliates $765 million, which would be redirected to investments in fossil fuels, including the development of natural gas-fired power plants in Indiana, Wisconsin, Kansas, and Missouri.
This deal only amounted to a partial reimbursement of the lease fees previously paid by the affiliates. The department did not say whether the developers agreed to stop pursuing wind energy projects.
The most recent agreement was announced at the end of June, canceling an offshore wind lease located in the Carolina Long Bay. The Interior Department said it was offering a partial reimbursement of the lease, valued at $129 million, to Duke Energy.
In exchange, the company said it would voluntarily terminate the lease and reinvest the funds in “additional generating capacity to better serve its customers in the Carolinas.”
It was not immediately clear if Duke Energy was also committing to avoiding future wind energy investments.
The buyout agreements are facing criticism from Democratic states, including California and New York, which were poised to benefit from the future wind farms.
Early last month, a coalition of seven blue states said they were suing the Trump administration over the original agreement struck with TotalEnergies in March.
The coalition, led by New York Attorney General Letitia James, argues that the payments amount to an illegal payoff, violating the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act.
The plaintiffs claim that the Interior Department is required by law to hold a hearing and find that continuing the lease would likely cause serious harm to life, property, national security, or the environment before canceling it.
California later said it also planned to sue the administration over the deal struck with Golden State Wind.
The administration has defended the deals, arguing that they were a dollar-for-dollar reimbursement of what most of these developers paid for the leases.
Wind energy advocates have hit back at this characterization, with Turn Forward executive director Hillary Bright insisting that canceling the projects is leaving regions without an alternative for new energy resources.
“When you eliminate future utility-scale power sources from a crowded, energy-hungry population center, you need a clear Plan B to avoid future grid stress,” she said. “Replacing coastal offshore wind with geothermal or natural gas infrastructure in another region does nothing to address rising ratepayer affordability concerns, reliability challenges or potential gaps in power supply in the Northeast and mid-Atlantic.”
The deals have marked a series of wins for the administration in its broader effort to stop the development of wind farms, after officials hit several roadblocks in federal court.
The administration’s government-wide policy assault on new and existing offshore wind projects started last year, imposing new regulatory hurdles for future wind farms, canceling more than $679 million in funding for offshore wind-related projects, and attempting to rescind permits or leases for under-construction projects.
INTERIOR DEPARTMENT KILLS FOUR MORE OFFSHORE WIND PROJECTS IN $765 MILLION DEAL
Multiple offshore wind farms triumphed over the administration’s pressure, with Vineyard Wind off of Massachusetts and Revolution off of Rhode Island announcing that their projects had begun delivering power this spring.
Both were among the five under-construction projects that the administration attempted to stop last year, alleging national security risks. Federal judges ruled in favor of all five projects, allowing them to resume.
