7 states sue Trump administration over nearly $1 billion deal to halt offshore wind farm
The investment is supposed to be redirected into fossil fuel initiatives.
Seven states are suing the Trump administration over a nearly $1 billion deal to end French energy company TotalEnergies' offshore wind development off the East Coast, accusing the deal of being "unlawful."
In March, the U.S. Department of the Interior reached a $928 million deal with TotalEnergies to halt construction of the wind farms and redirect the investment into domestic fossil fuel initiatives. The "landmark agreement" was described by the Interior Department as a way to lower energy costs and strengthen the nation’s energy security.
Attorneys general in seven states in the Northeast, including Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island and Vermont, filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Tuesday, alleging the Trump administration illegally used nearly $1 billion in taxpayer dollars for the deal.
The coalition also accuses the deal of violating the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, which restricts the Interior Department’s ability to cancel offshore wind leases.
"The Trump administration is once again trying to kill clean energy projects and destroy good-paying jobs for New Yorkers," New York Attorney General Leticia James, who is leading the coalition, said in a statement.
The filing requests that a court strike down the agreement.
Named in the lawsuit are the U.S. Department of the Interior and Sec. Doug Burgum; the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and Acting Director Matthew Giocona; and the U.S. Department of Justice and Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche.
TotalEnergies' leases would have allowed the developer to construct massive offshore wind farms off the coasts of New York and North Carolina.
About 10% of electricity generated in the U.S. comes from wind power, according to the Department of Energy. There are currently more than 75,000 wind turbines in the U.S., according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
But the federal government has more authority to regulate offshore than onshore wind projects, since offshore wind is installed in federal waters, Michelle Solomon, senior policy analyst at Energy Innovation, a non-partisan research and analysis nonprofit that supports clean energy, told ABC News in March after the news of the TotalEnergies deal broke.
In a statement to ABC News, a spokesperson for the Department of the Interior said, "The only thing blatantly unlawful here was the process by which these offshore wind leases were negotiated and imposed under the Biden administration."
"Billions of dollars were effectively taken from the pockets of hardworking taxpayers and funneled into energy projects that were not only unreliable, but also unaffordable," the spokesperson said.
The Interior Department reiterated that there were "serious" national security risks that demanded immediate attention, "which critics conveniently ignore."
"These settlements were reviewed and approved by the Department of Justice, underscoring that they went through the appropriate channels," the spokesperson said. "Attempts to rewrite history now cannot erase the reality of these projects and the damage they could cause. This administration will not sit back and let reckless projects create higher utility costs, a weakened energy system, and unnecessary harm to the environment."
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Justice Department and TotalEnergies did not immediately return ABC News' request for comment.
The lawsuit also names TotalEnergies subsidiary Attentive Energy, which paid $795 million to purchase an offshore wind lease approximately 47 miles off the coast of New York in 2022.
The $795 million was "unlawfully" reimbursed from the Judgment Fund -- a U.S. Treasury appropriation that pays out court judgments, administrative awards and Justice Department compromise settlements when agencies lack the legally available funds to pay them themselves -- as part of the deal, according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit also contends that the lease cancellation should be held unlawful because the defendants failed to provide a genuine justification for their actions, according to the court documents.
ABC News could not immediately reach a representative for Attentive Energy. The website is no longer operating, and an email sent to its press office bounced back.
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