Trump admin’s cancellation of wind energy projects causes business turmoil

French energy giant TotalEnergies is embroiled in a lawsuit between seven US states and the federal government as the administration of President Donald Trump upends domestic energy policy, shutting down some wind energy projects while pushing fossil fuels.

It has also raised questions about the predictability of the business and investment environment under a president who has peddled back many policies that were set up under his predecessor, President Joe Biden, a Democrat, including on investing in renewable energy.

The case is tied to two offshore wind farms that TotalEnergies had planned in the US. The larger one, Attentive Energy, was to be built 54 miles (87km) south of Jones Beach, New York, and would have powered a million homes and businesses in New York and New Jersey. The smaller one, Carolina Long Bay, was meant to start operations in the early 2030s in North Carolina.

In March, TotalEnergies agreed a deal with the Trump administration to abandon those plans for $928m and invest in oil and gas projects instead. This week, seven northeastern states sued the Trump administration over that arrangement.

In their filing, the states’ attorneys general said New York “is in significant need of additional electricity”. The Attentive wind project off the states’ coast would have ensured it and the other northeastern states “the reliability of their grids and also helping them to meet their statutory climate goals”.

On March 23, the administration reached its agreement with TotalEnergies to end the offshore wind leases for Attentive and Carolina Long Bay. In April, it reached a similar deal to cancel the lease for Golden State Wind in Morro Bay, off the central coast of California, and Blue Point Wind, off the coast of New York. The department would pay the developers more than $2bn for withdrawing from the four leases and investing in oil and gas projects instead.

“Calling these deals unusual is a huge understatement,” said Dave Owens, Albert Abramson distinguished professor of Law at the University of California Law School in San Francisco.

“I am not aware of any precedence for this,” said Jordan Diamond of the Environmental Law Institute, a Washington, DC-based think tank. This is the first time developers have been paid to withdraw wind power leases.