SACRAMENTO, September 22 — California and New York sued the Trump administration on Tuesday over its plans to buy back offshore wind leases, opening a legal fight over nearly $4 billion in taxpayer money the federal government has pledged to energy companies to walk away from projects. The stakes are straightforward. The administration has committed nearly $4 billion to companies in exchange for cancelling offshore wind developments across the country.
Two of those deals alone — with Chicago-based Invenergy and with Bluepoint Wind — would hand energy companies $1.4 billion in taxpayer dollars, according to the attorneys general challenging them.
What the suits target
California Attorney General Rob Bonta said he is suing over the removal of a project off his state’s coast planned by Invenergy. The Trump administration said in June that it is buying back the company’s U.S. offshore wind leases for four wind projects on the East and West coasts.
New York Attorney General Letitia James led seven states in suits seeking to block the Invenergy deal and another proposal with Bluepoint Wind, which agreed in April to end a wind farm under development off the New York and New Jersey coast. Attorneys general in Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Vermont joined New York’s suit.
James called the deals illegal and said they will ultimately increase Americans’ electricity bills by sabotaging states’ ability to meet growing energy demands. “Americans are facing increasing energy costs because this administration would rather pay off energy companies than let us build the new power sources we need,” James said in a statement. “These illegal backroom deals take money that should have gone toward lowering New Yorkers’ bills and hand it to fossil fuel projects in other states.”
The political backdrop
President Donald Trump, who often talks about his hatred of wind power, has said his goal is to not let any “windmills” be built. Offshore wind produces electricity cleanly. Oil, coal and natural gas emit carbon pollution when burned.
Bonta framed the litigation as a defensive necessity. He said that as a national and global leader in the fight against climate change, California finds itself enmeshed in “avoidable and unnecessary battles with our own federal government” to advance climate action and move toward clean energy.
He said climate action needs to match the scope, speed and scale of the problem. “Because we have to go to court and block an unlawful action by the Trump administration each time, it takes time. It slows the process down and we know we are running out of time and we need to be urgent and aggressive,” Bonta said Tuesday in remarks just before Trump addressed the U.N. General Assembly.
“We’re still all in, in California. No matter what the Trump administration does, we’re going to push to participate in the climate action that is needed to meet this moment and to rise to the occasion.” Bonta spoke at a Climate Week event in New York City.
What to watch next is whether the courts move fast enough to matter. The buyback agreements are already signed with Invenergy and Bluepoint Wind, and the administration has pledged nearly $4 billion in total to companies exiting projects nationwide. The attorneys general are asking judges to block the deals before the money changes hands and the leases are formally retired.
