Trump Administration To Pay French Company $1 Billion To Stop Offshore Wind Farms (npr.org)
- Reference: 0181089032
- News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/03/23/2221232/trump-administration-to-pay-french-company-1-billion-to-stop-offshore-wind-farms
- Source link: https://www.npr.org/2026/03/23/g-s1-114868/trump-totalenergies-offshore-wind-leases
> The Trump administration will [1]pay $1 billion to a French company to walk away from two U.S. offshore wind leases as the administration ramps up its campaign against offshore wind and other renewable energy. TotalEnergies has [2]agreed to what's essentially a refund of its leases for projects off the coasts of North Carolina and New York, and will invest the money in fossil fuel projects instead, the Department of Interior announced Monday.
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> The Trump administration has tried to halt offshore wind construction, but federal judges overturned those orders. Environmental groups denounced the TotalEnergies deal as an alternate way to block wind projects. President Donald Trump has gone all in on fossil fuels, which he says is the way to lower costs for families, increase reliability and help the U.S. maintain global leadership in artificial intelligence.
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> TotalEnergies pledged to not develop any new offshore wind projects in the United States. TotalEnergies CEO Patrick Pouyanne said in a statement that the company renounced offshore wind development in the United States in exchange for the reimbursement of the lease fees, "considering that the development of offshore wind projects is not in the country's interest." Pouyanne said the refunded lease fees will finance the construction of a liquefied natural gas plant in Texas and the development of its oil and gas activities, calling it a "more efficient use of capital" in the U.S. After it makes those investments, TotalEnergies will be reimbursed, up to the amount paid in lease purchases for offshore wind, according to the DOI.
[1] https://www.npr.org/2026/03/23/g-s1-114868/trump-totalenergies-offshore-wind-leases
[2] https://www.doi.gov/pressreleases/interior-and-totalenergies-agree-end-offshore-wind-projects-lowering-costs-american
Incredible (Score:4, Interesting)
Only 1/200th the cost of starting a war in the middle east! [1]https://apnews.com/article/ira... [apnews.com]
[1] https://apnews.com/article/iran-war-us-pentagon-972ec1bd956a2c3633e6ab7fff389791
Re: (Score:2)
America's doing such a good job at being the little bitch boy to Iran... "ooooh we had productive talks". Oh wait, that's right, he ended the prohibition on Iran's oil, so America is actively funding Iran's war against itself. Definitely a position of power he's negotiating from. LMFAOOOOO
Re: (Score:2)
Yep. Still registering all the payback from 1953.
Your tax dollars at work (Score:4, Insightful)
Paying more taxes and creating more debt to have less infrastructure and less proof against global petroleum market instability. From the brilliant mind of a Wharton School economics graduate.
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Not that I like the decision, but it's cleverly done. The headline is misleading. the company will get reimbursed for their purchased licences for the offshore development, and build some natgas facility instead with the same money. It's money-neutral for everyone involved, and it develops some sort of energy infrastructure.
Of course it is only a dilatory move that has no perspective of enduring a change of political leadership, but that's not the issue today.
Re: Your tax dollars at work (Score:1)
Is the company paying Texas a billion dollars for land leases? Or did our government give away a billion dollars in fees?
Re: (Score:2)
My guess is both are correct. Your government gave away a billion dollars in fees to lease land on your maritime domain; now moving to Texas they still need to lease or purchase land from someone to whatever is the current market price.
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Are you ignoring the obvious fact that coal has to be mined constantly manually, and therefore costing over 4-6x per MW/H over wind (not factoring in that people around coal planets will suffer for inhaling constant pollution, or spending even more to store it somewhere)?
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> Are you ignoring the obvious fact that coal has to be mined constantly manually,
I am against burning coal and definitively want more windmills in my neighborhood. My point is only that this is not a case of "more taxes and creating more debt to have less infrastructure". They were more clever than that in the design of their evil plan.
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
Correct, offshore wind energy is far more expensive than onshore wind, although it does have a slightly higher capacity factor. Floating offshore wind is a factor of two (at least) more expensive again.
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> Correct, offshore wind energy is far more expensive than onshore wind, although it does have a slightly higher capacity factor. Floating offshore wind is a factor of two (at least) more expensive again.
Interesting. You were just down-modded for a purely factual statement.
Congress is the one with the purse (Score:3, Interesting)
I think this should be ruled unconstitutional. It is congress that has the power of the purse, Trump shouldn't be able to pay anything for something like this without their approval.
If he does cause it to be paid, it should come out of his own personal finances.
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The headline is retarded.
He isn't "paying" them. The Department of Interior is refunding fees. Refunds are normal practice and not something that Congress needs to approve on an individual basis.
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Remember when the Supreme Court ruled Biden's idea to forgive or "refund" people's student loans was unconstitutional?
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> Remember when the Supreme Court ruled Biden's idea to forgive or "refund" people's student loans was unconstitutional?
That's an... odd... definition of "refund".
Does anyone know who buys energy from Total Energy (Score:2)
You might wish to consider whether or not to buy from those who buy from total energy.
If anyone knows who their customers are, please share.
Aiding and Abetting (Score:2)
President Donald Trump has gone all in on fossil fuels, which he says is the way to lower costs for families, increase reliability and help the U.S. maintain global leadership in artificial intelligence.
How's that working out so far? It's seems likely that the current situation in the middle east, resulting in increases worldwide (including the US) in fossil fuel energy prices is going to accelerate the uptake of renewables and a decreased dependency on the oil in the rest of the world. The major be
Taxes... (Score:1)
Apparently this is what our collective tax money is going towards... stopping projects that the administration doesn't like, and a war that we don't want... GOP no longer can say this is responsible government spending.
Well cult followers (Score:1, Funny)
Let's hear your thoughts on this 4d chess move
Re:Well cult followers (Score:4, Informative)
My electric util pays me. Why? I have solar and push back to the grid. My neighbor was bitching about their $600 electric bill, I told him last month I got a credit. He was angry AF. So, your comment is bullshit and you know it. MAGA moron, you can't even log in so you're just a troll.
Re: Well cult followers (Score:1)
This day and age that's considered to be...evil? Something something social contract, grid needs money, pay your taxes, la-dee-da.
[1]https://slashdot.org/story/122... [slashdot.org]
[1] https://slashdot.org/story/122789
Re: (Score:2)
> Plus, why were we paying a French company in the first place?
To stop offshore wind farms. It's right in the title of the post for crying out loud.
Re: (Score:2)
Okay, move directly next to one. It's cheap land since no sane person wants to suck in a shit ton of pollution, but you seem fine with it.
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> If the off-shore wind farms are such an obvious win, then they don’t need that billion.
They're not getting subsidies to build wind farms. They're getting a cool billion to not build wind farms.
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If you want to know the trigger-words, just watch fox news.
Alternate Energy is right up there with trans and woke on the "stop thinking rationally and follow the leader!" triggers
We will continue to have a large segment of our population behaving like triggered nut-cases as long as we tolerate these modern peddlers of yellow journalism
Frankly fox news has become successful to the point of soiling the world, and trump is the worst case manifestation of their tactics
Re: (Score:2)
Lmfao, even ignoring all the environmental impacts... you really want to be held hostage by these crazy gas prices? You know all the wealthy elites are getting backdoor information from these moves, so they know where to call / put stocks and such, so they don't care.
Re: Well cult followers (Score:4, Informative)
Meanwhile, red blooded, conservative, Trump-loving, Fox-watching, Carlson-and-loomer-watching businessmen in Texas are quietly installing as much solar and wind energy as they can get their hands on. Because theyve seen the actual numbers and know that solar and wind are the best business proposition and the quickest ROI of all the energy sources.
The executive branch is currently being run by a reality-show star. The messaging is designed to distract, confuse, and either entertain or trigger you. The messaging is NOT meant to inform. Same goes for many so-called news sources that are actually entertainement designed to keep you scrolling. If you want to know whatâ(TM)s actually going on, you gotta actually pay attention to whatâ(TM)s actually happening, get your news from real sources, and ignore the circus.
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You are correct, Texas is the state with the most wind turbine capacity, and pretty high up there on solar generation capacity too. Of course, the wind doesn't blow in Texas... it sucks.
Re: (Score:2)
"trans"? Wait 'til he hears Transnistria is reuniting with Moldovia; his head will explode!
Re: (Score:2)
My thought? Little Donnie is eating the chess pieces again!
Re: (Score:2)
The world is going to burn, and our descendants will live in a new stone age, but the shareholders will get a great return on their investments this quarter!