Trump administration buys out 4 more offshore wind leases for $765M
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- U.S. Department of the Interior agreed to pay Invenergy $765 million to terminate four offshore wind leases in the New York Bight, the Gulf of Maine, and off Morro Bay, California, bringing the administration's total lease buyouts to eight at a cost exceeding $2.5 billion.
- The terminated leases represented a potential 4.8 GW of wind capacity; the New York Bight project, Leading Light Wind (2.4 GW) co-developed with energyRE, was already cancelled in November.
- Invenergy will redirect the $765 million to natural gas-fired power plants in Indiana, Wisconsin, Iowa, Kansas, and Missouri and geothermal power projects in the Western U.S., per Interior.
- Interior previously paid TotalEnergies $928 million to relinquish two leases, with those funds directed to the Rio Grande LNG plant in Texas and Gulf oil and shale gas production.
- Attorneys general from seven states — New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Vermont — are suing over the TotalEnergies deal, alleging no statute authorizes "sham settlement agreements" that redirect lease money to projects favored by the President.
- Sierra Club Senior Advisor Nancy Pyne called the buyouts "shady backroom deals," while NJLCV interim Executive Director Allison McLeod said the Invenergy agreement showed "blatant disregard for what's legal."
Why it matters: The administration is spending over $2.5 billion in taxpayer funds via the Treasury Judgment Fund to compensate wind developers for cancelled leases, then redirecting that same money to natural gas and LNG projects — a mechanism seven state attorneys general call an unauthorized "sham," creating direct legal exposure for the buyout program.
