Taxpayers will spend another three-quarters of a billion dollars to make sure four offshore wind farms are never built. The Interior Department on Wednesday said it will pay Invenergy $765 million to give up leases for projects off New York, California's central coast, and in the Gulf of Maine—deals that had stalled after the Trump administration froze federal permitting for offshore wind. It's the third such arrangement under Trump, the New York Times reports, bringing total federal payouts to roughly $2.5 billion to unwind offshore wind leases in favor of fossil fuel investments.
The energy developer, which spent about $800 million on the leases during the Biden administration, will redirect the money into at least five new natural gas plants in the Midwest and geothermal projects in the West. Similar agreements with companies face lawsuits from seven Democratic-led states. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum framed the canceled leases as misguided bets on subsidized "costly, unreliable" power, while offshore wind advocates warned that scrapping projects the Northeast was counting on could worsen future electricity shortfalls without easing costs or reliability concerns.
Only three offshore wind leases remain intact off the California coast, per the Los Angeles Times. "Donald Trump is using your tax dollars to make America more dependent on dirty, volatile fossil fuels," Democratic Rep. Jared Huffman said Wednesday, adding, "It is hard to imagine a more backwards use of taxpayer money."
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