Trump Administration Settles with TotalEnergies, Refunds $1B in Offshore Wind Leases as NY and Six States Sue

New York and six neighboring states sued the Trump administration Tuesday over a settlement that refunds French energy company TotalEnergies nearly $1 billion to cancel an offshore wind lease off New York. S. District Court for the District of Columbia, says the March agreement bypassed required procedures and will reduce clean-energy supply for the plaintiff states.

TotalEnergies bought the New York-New Jersey lease in 2022 for $795 million. The project was designed to generate up to 3 gigawatts, enough to power nearly one million homes. Under the settlement, the company receives the full amount back if it invests the money in fossil-fuel projects instead.

A smaller lease off North Carolina, purchased for about $133 million, is also covered by the same deal. The states contend the cancellation will raise electricity costs, weaken grid reliability, and undercut climate targets. They estimate the New York project would have delivered $10 billion in ratepayer savings, including $500 million for low-income households.

The complaint asks the court to void both the lease cancellation and the settlement with TotalEnergies subsidiary Attentive Energy. S. energy projects.

New York Attorney General Letitia James said the arrangement amounted to paying a foreign company to abandon offshore wind. "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," Letitia James stated in a Tuesday release.

Democrats in Congress have opened an investigation into the agreement, and California is examining a separate floating-wind settlement off its coast.