States Sue Trump Administration After It Cancels Offshore Wind Leases and Refunds Nearly $1 Billion to TotalEnergies

Seven Democratic-led states sued the Trump administration Tuesday to overturn a March agreement that refunded nearly $1 billion to French energy company TotalEnergies for canceling offshore wind leases off New York and North Carolina. S. District Court for the District of Columbia, claims the Interior Department canceled the leases without following required procedures.

It names Interior Secretary Doug Burgum among the defendants. New York Attorney General Letitia James led the filing and was joined by attorneys general from Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Vermont. The states say the canceled New York lease would have supplied electricity to nearly one million homes and produced $10 billion in ratepayer savings.

TotalEnergies had paid $795 million for the New York-New Jersey lease and about $133 million for the Carolina Long Bay lease. The states are asking the court to vacate both the lease cancellation and the settlement agreement with TotalEnergies subsidiary Attentive Energy. They contend the deal will eliminate more than 1,000 union jobs and raise electricity costs for millions of residents.

The New York lease was planned to generate 3 gigawatts of clean energy. The Carolina Long Bay project aimed to generate more than 1 gigawatt and power about 300,000 homes. New York Attorney General Letitia James stated: "This administration cooked up a sham deal to pay a foreign energy company hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to abandon offshore wind and invest in oil and gas instead.

New York Gov. S. Government an interest-free loan and their money was refunded to them,” he said. Burgum has said companies were sold a product that was only viable when propped up by massive taxpayer subsidies when they bid for these offshore wind leases in 2022 under former President Joe Biden.

The Trump administration has reached similar agreements worth nearly $2 billion to end other offshore wind projects.

Democrats in Congress are investigating the TotalEnergies deal. California is examining a separate floating-wind agreement off its coast. Bluepoint Wind agreed to relinquish an early-stage lease off New Jersey and New York, though that agreement is not part of Tuesday’s lawsuit because the lease has not yet been formally canceled.