The Trump admin paid a French company $1 billion to not build offshore wind farms. Blue states are suing

Source: CNN

The Trump admin paid a French company $1 billion to not build offshore wind farms. Blue states are suing

Updated 4 hr ago
Updated Jun 2, 2026, 3:13 PM ET
PUBLISHED Jun 2, 2026, 1:33 PM ET
Ella Nilsen

A coalition of seven blue states sued the Trump administration Tuesday after it paid a French company nearly $1 billion in taxpayer money to not build offshore wind farms.

The lawsuit, led by New York attorney general Letitia James, argued that the deal struck between TotalEnergies and the Trump administration earlier this year deprived their states of much-needed power, and could raise electricity costs in the New England and mid-Atlantic regions.

In March, the Trump administration announced it would pay French energy giant TotalEnergies $928 million in taxpayer funds to reimburse the company for leases it had purchased under the Biden administration, allowing it to develop two offshore wind farms in waters near New York and North Carolina. The vast majority of that — $795 million — would have gone towards developing the New York project.

In exchange, TotalEnergies would spend that reimbursed money on the development of a new liquified natural gas plant in Texas, helping export US LNG overseas to Europe, CEO Patrick Pouyanné said in a statement at the time.

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Read more: https://edition.cnn.com/2026/06/02/climate/trump-totalenergies-lawsuit-offshore-wind