Trump Just Paid $1 Billion in Your Tax Dollars to Kill Wind Farms — Here's What That Means for Your Energy Bill

Trump Just Paid $1 Billion in Your Tax Dollars to Kill Wind Farms — Here's What That Means for Your Energy Bill

The Trump administration just spent nearly $1 billion of American taxpayer money — not to build something. Not to fix something. But to make sure something never gets built at all.

The Trump administration reached an agreement to pay $1 billion to French energy firm TotalEnergies to stop developing two offshore wind farms off the coast of New York and North Carolina, instead directing the investments to oil and gas projects. (Al Jazeera)

The announcement landed Monday at an energy conference in Houston — and the reaction from both sides of the political aisle was immediate, sharp, and deeply divided.

What Exactly Happened?

TotalEnergies has agreed to what's essentially a refund of its leases for projects off the coasts of North Carolina and New York, and will invest the money in fossil fuel projects instead. The Interior Department hailed the agreement with the French energy giant. (CNBC)

The settlement pays $928 million across two lease areas — $795 million for the Attentive Energy project off New York and New Jersey, and $133 million for the Carolina Long Bay project off North Carolina — eliminating 4 gigawatts of planned capacity. (TRADING ECONOMICS)

To put that in perspective: the projects canceled under the deal would have provided power to more than 1 million homes. (MPR News)

Instead of powering 1 million American homes with wind energy, that money will now flow into a liquefied natural gas facility in Texas, oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, and shale gas production. (Syndicated News)

Why Is Trump Doing This?

Trump has been on a personal crusade against wind power since he lost a fight a decade ago to block a project visible from one of his Scotland golf courses. This generated such hysterical hatred for wind power that Trump, in 2019, publicly suggested that the sound generated by wind turbines "causes cancer." (SSBCrack)

In his second term, the administration has tried every legal tool available to stop offshore wind. The current administration has thrown up roadblocks at every turn for offshore wind projects. After trying and failing to block construction on more mature projects, this announcement is the first sign of a new strategy: the federal government is paying to stop wind farms before they begin. (CNBC)

The administration tried and failed — five times, in five courts — to stop offshore wind farms already under construction. Today, it took a different approach. (TRADING ECONOMICS)

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum put it bluntly at the Houston conference: "We are not driven by a climate fantasy." (CNN)

What Does TotalEnergies Get Out of This?

TotalEnergies to invest around $1 billion — the value of its renounced offshore wind leases — in oil and natural gas and LNG production in the U.S. The announcement comes as the Iran war disrupts global oil and gas supplies, making the U.S.' development of its LNG resources more critical. (NPR)

TotalEnergies CEO Patrick Pouyanné was candid about the calculation: "It's good to be innovative from time to time and pragmatic. We can recycle this money into smarter investments." (CNN)

In other words: the wind farms weren't going to be profitable without federal subsidies. The refund turns a stranded investment into a new business opportunity. For TotalEnergies, it's a clean exit. For American taxpayers, the bill is $928 million.

The Critics Are Furious

The response from Democratic governors and environmental groups was fierce.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said Trump was "using a pay-not-to-play scheme" to pressure the French company not to build offshore wind, calling it "an outrageous abuse of taxpayer dollars." (CNBC)

North Carolina Governor Josh Stein called the deal "ludicrous." "Our state has the offshore wind potential to power millions of homes with renewable American-made energy," he said. "It's ludicrous and wasteful that the Trump Administration is spending $1 billion in taxpayer money to pay off a company to stop it from investing private dollars to create the clean energy we need." (U.S. News & World Report)

Ted Kelly, clean energy director at the Environmental Defense Fund, said the proposed deals "are an outrageous misuse of taxpayer dollars to prevent Americans from having clean, affordable power exactly when they need it most." (CNBC)

Environmental groups went further. Lena Moffitt of Evergreen Action said: "After losing again and again in court on his illegal stop-work orders, Trump has found another way to strangle offshore wind: pay them to walk away." (CNBC)

What Does This Mean for Your Energy Bill?

This is where it gets personal for every American household.

The U.S. really does face a genuine need for more power due to rising demand, strained grids, and soaring bills. But the Trump administration just spent nearly $1 billion of public money to keep zero-fuel-cost generation off a grid that ratepayers are already paying more to power. (TRADING ECONOMICS)

An offshore wind project called Revolution Wind went online two weeks ago, and it's expected to generate enough electricity to provide power for more than 350,000 homes and businesses in Rhode Island and Connecticut year-round. It's also expected to save New England consumers as much as $500 million in wholesale energy costs. (SSBCrack)

The projects just canceled would have done the same — at scale — for New York and North Carolina. Instead, those states will continue buying power from natural gas plants whose prices spike whenever global energy markets get disrupted.

And right now, with the Iran conflict sending oil and gas prices through the roof, those disruptions are happening constantly.

The Bottom Line

Nearly $1 billion in American taxpayer money. Two wind projects canceled. Power for 1 million homes that will never be generated. And a pledge from one of the world's largest energy companies that it will never build offshore wind in America again.

Whether you support Trump's energy agenda or oppose it, the math is the same: Americans will pay for this decision — at the pump, and on their electricity bills — for years to come.

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