CleanTechnica D/D1/国际能源技术 D1

发布：2026-06-05 · 事件：2026-06-05

Offshore wind projects can bring hundreds of new jobs to their host states, as illustrated by the Sunrise Wind project in New York (cropped, courtesy of Sunrise Wind). June 2, 2026 5 seconds Tina Case...

Offshore wind projects can bring hundreds of new jobs to their host states, as illustrated by the Sunrise Wind project in New York (cropped, courtesy of Sunrise Wind). June 2, 2026 5 seconds Tina Casey 0 Comments Support CleanTechnica's work through a Substack subscription or on Stripe . When the French energy firm TotalEnergies took a buyout of almost $1 billion from the Trump administration in return for walking away from from two federal offshore wind leases, it walked straight into a world of trouble. Now seven East Coast states are suing the Trump administration in federal court over the deal, with New York in the lead joined by Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Vermont. A World Of Trouble Over Two Offshore Wind Leases For reasons best known only to himself, US President Donald Trump has gone after the domestic wind industry with a buzzsaw. The offshore sector is particularly vulnerable because it depends almost entirely on lease areas auctioned and administered by the US Department of the Interior. Upon taking office last year, Trump announced a halt to all new offshore wind leases, a prerogative later affirmed by a federal judge. That same judge, though, also determined that the Trump administration has no authority to suspend existing leases for spurious re-reviews. Additionally, other federal judges have prevented Trump from stopping work on five East Coast projects that were already well into the construction phase as of last year: the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind Project, Vineyard Wind in Massachusetts, Revolution Wind in Rhode Island with Connecticut as a partner, and two New York projects, Empire Wind and Sunrise Wind. Undeterred by the series of losses, Trump decided to deploy money to pry other existing lease holders away from their projects, and TotalEnergies was the first such experiment. Citing undefined national security concerns, the Trump administration offered TotalEnergies almost $1 billion to drop its claim on a lease area in New York, and another in North Carolina. TotalEnergies accepted the deal, and the Democratic US Senator from Rhode Island, Sheldon Whitehouse, was among those not taking the news sitting down. In a letter dated April 9, Whitehouse told TotalEnergies CEO Patrick Pouyanné to prepare for a fight. Among other issues, Whitehouse charged that the agreement with the Trump administration “appears to suffer from a lack of legally available or appropriated funding.” “Ranking Member Whitehouse also warned of possible violations of the Antideficiency Act, which ‘prohibits federal agencies from obligating or expending federal funds in advance or in excess of an appropriation,’” Whitehouse’s office added in a press statement on April 13. “No matter how much President Trump and his officials may claim that offshore wind is more expensive and less reliable than fossil fuel energy, those claims are simply false,” Whitehouse further emphasized. Seven US States Take The Gloves Off In his capacity as Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, Whitehouse demanded that TotalEnergies produce details about the deal. TotalEnergies ignored the demand, though much of the relevant information soon became available publicly. That kickstarted a reaction by Democratic members of  the House Committee on Natural Resources and the House Committee on the Judiciary, who demanded an explanation from Pouyanné in a letter dated April 29. “The Department of the Interior (DOI) paid your company a nearly $1 billion corporate handout with taxpayer money under indefensible and possibly illegal terms,” advised Ranking Members Jared Huffman and Jamie Raskin. “Buried in the settlement agreement is a clause that unconstitutionally attempts to keep any court from ever reviewing it,” they added. Not being one to sit on her hands while crimes are happening, on June 2 New York Attorney General Letitia James announced a lawsuit against the Trump administration, in which she asked the court to cancel the agreement, return the lease area in New York to TotalEnergies, and prevent the Trump administration from any further interference with the lease. Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Vermont also joined the lawsuit. “After repeatedly losing in court, 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,” charged AG James in a press statement. New York Governor Kathy Hochul also chipped in her two cents. “This pay-not-to-play scheme pressuring a foreign company to forego planned offshore wind projects in America in favor of gas and oil drilling is an outrageous abuse of taxpayer dollars that hurts our ability to meet our energy needs, create good jobs, and help secure American energy independence while reducing emissions,” Governor Hochul said. “Attorney General James and I will continue to aggressively fight b