Why the Trump administration is paying billions to abandon wind farms

Amna Nawaz:

Meanwhile, I want to turn to another piece of critical reporting you have been doing, tracking the money around the Trump administration, new reporting that energy companies are set to get nearly a billion dollars to not build offshore wind farms. I know the president has been critical of these projects in the past, but why that payout?

Liz Landers:

Several large-scale wind energy projects on the East and West Coast of the U.S. have been canceled in the last few months. In March, the administration announced a nearly $1 billion payout to TotalEnergies, which is a French company, to abandon an offshore wind project.

They had bought two leases in 2022, one off the coast of North Carolina. That was for more than $133 million, and then another off the coast of New York for $795 million. And then last week, more than $900 million in additional payouts were made for two more projects, Bluepoint Wind off of the coast of New York and New Jersey and Golden State Wind off of the coast of California.

So between the last few months, there have been nearly $2 billion in these payments. The administration had initially tried to block some of these wind projects from going forward, citing national security concerns. That was batted down in several different courts.

And the interior secretary, Doug Burgum, told the Associated Press that these projects were only viable when they were propped up by taxpayer subsidies under the Biden administration. We reached out to the Department of Interior to ask about this. We did not hear back from them in time.

Amna Nawaz:

Nearly $2 billion in payments. So does the administration have the spending authority to do that?

Liz Landers:

There are serious questions about the legality of this.

I spoke with Liz Klein earlier today. She was the former director under President Biden of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. And she does not think that it is legal for the administration to be taking these kinds of steps. Here's a little bit of what she had to say.

Elizabeth Klein, Former Director, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management: Many of us believe they have gone outside of what is lawful, certainly outside of any appropriate process. They have crafted these agreements, which really the best way to describe them are backdoor deals that lack transparency. They lack an appropriate process that you would normally follow.

Liz Landers:

Klein says that the agency that she used to oversee does not have the statutory or regulatory authority to refund the monies to these companies after they paid for the lease. And, Amna, this is raising questions for members of Congress and also Republicans in New York state who are questioning the administration's moves here.

Amna Nawaz:

Liz Landers, great reporting, as always. Thank you so much.

Liz Landers:

Of course.