Trump administration pays Invenergy to abandon offshore wind leases

Taxpayers are now covering $765 million for Invenergy to give up four offshore wind leases off New York, California and Maine. The deal, announced June 17, was the administration’s fourth buyout agreement and pushed its total spending on offshore wind lease exits to nearly $2.6 billion.

The $765 million Invenergy payment will be reimbursed from lease fees and redirected to other energy projects, including natural gas power plants in Indiana, Wisconsin, Iowa, Kansas and Missouri, along with geothermal development in the western United States.

Invenergy’s agreement followed two earlier buyout rounds. In March, the Interior Department reached a deal with TotalEnergies to end the Carolina Long Bay and New York Bight leases, both awarded in 2022. TotalEnergies said it would no longer develop offshore wind projects in the United States, while the company said it would invest about $1 billion in U.S. oil, gas and LNG. The settlement was nearly $1 billion.

In April, the department ended Bluepoint Wind and Golden State Wind offshore leases for a combined $885 million in refunded lease fees. Bluepoint Wind is a partnership involving Ocean Winds and BlackRock’s Global Infrastructure Partners. Those agreements are dollar-for-dollar reimbursements and a way to redirect capital away from offshore wind.

New York Attorney General Letitia James and Gov. Kathy Hochul filed suit over the TotalEnergies deal, saying the canceled project would have saved New Yorkers $10 billion in energy bills and created more than 1,700 jobs. California has said it intends to sue over the cancellation of an offshore wind lease off its central coast, and state officials say California has already invested more than $100 million in wind-energy development.

Earlier efforts to block projects through executive action were defeated in court, including rulings that stopped attempts to halt five offshore wind farms already under construction off the East Coast.