Northeast States Resist Trump Administration's Corporate Fossil Fuel Giveaway
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Seven progressive states are suing the Trump administration for its nearly $1 billion backroom deal to sabotage offshore wind development by TotalEnergies, arguing the agreement is an illegal handout to fossil fuel interests and a violation of federal law.
A coalition of seven states, standing up for climate justice and green jobs, has launched a lawsuit against the Trump administration over a $928 million scheme to halt offshore wind development by TotalEnergies along the East Coast. The states—Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, and Vermont—argue that the deal is a blatant misuse of taxpayer money and a direct violation of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, which is supposed to promote sustainable offshore wind leases, not fossil fuel profits.
New York Attorney General Leticia James, leading this critical legal challenge, condemned the administration’s reckless attack on clean energy and working families. “The Trump administration is once again trying to kill clean energy projects and destroy good-paying jobs for New Yorkers,” she said, highlighting the administration’s pattern of prioritizing polluters over people. The lawsuit demands the reversal of the agreement, which diverts much-needed investments away from wind power and into dirty domestic fossil fuel projects.
The U.S. Department of the Interior, echoing fossil fuel industry talking points, defended the corrupt settlement as supposedly necessary for 'national energy security' and cost reduction, while attacking the Biden administration’s efforts to expand renewable energy. A department spokesperson dismissed the lawsuit, attempting to deflect from the real risks posed by abandoning wind energy in favor of more oil and gas.
The suit also points out that TotalEnergies’ offshore wind leases would have enabled major clean energy developments off New York and North Carolina, boosting the U.S. wind energy sector, which already supplies about 10% of the nation’s electricity. The Department of the Interior, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Justice Department, and Attentive Energy are all implicated in this fossil fuel giveaway. The lawsuit further alleges that the $928 million payout was unlawfully siphoned from the U.S. Treasury’s Judgment Fund, with no legitimate justification—another example of the Trump administration’s disregard for the law and the planet.