The Trump administration is weighing a $1 billion payout to compensate TotalEnergies for canceled offshore wind leases, reports suggest, making what would be one of the clearest financial unwindings of Biden’s clean energy policy.
According to a New York Times report cited by Reuters on Tuesday, U.S. officials are drafting agreements that would see the Interior Department cancel two offshore wind leases—Attentive Energy off New York and Carolina Long Bay off North Carolina—followed by a Justice Department payment of more than $928 million to the French energy major. The compensation would cover TotalEnergies’ winning bids in prior federal lease sales.
Offshore wind was a centerpiece of the previous administration’s push to build out 30 gigawatts of capacity by 2030, with lease sales stretching from the Northeast to the Gulf of Mexico. Those ambitions have since stalled.
In the wake of Trump’s election victory and disdain for green energy projects, TotalEnergies announced in 2024 that it was pausing the development of its offshore wind project known as Attentive Energy. So, settlement or not, the project is effectively scrapped.
Roughly $8 billion in U.S. clean energy investments were canceled or downsized in the first quarter of 2025 alone, as companies reassessed project economics and policy risk.
The proposed settlement suggests the administration is not just slowing new development, but actively clearing the pipeline of existing projects. Even if TotalEnergies were to reject the payout, the leases would still be canceled under the current plan, according to the report.
In exchange, the company would abandon the wind projects and shift investment toward U.S. natural gas infrastructure, including assets in Texas.
Offshore wind developers have faced repeated setbacks under the current administration, including permit reviews, construction halts, and broader policy headwinds. A recent Interior Department order to suspend work on Equinor’s Empire Wind project off New York added to the pressure.
The potential payout raises questions about cost. Taxpayer-funded compensation approaching $1 billion would effectively close out projects that had already been awarded and, in some cases, partially advanced.
For now, the settlement remains under discussion. Either way, the U.S. is moving away from offshore wind, and it may be willing to pay to do it.
By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com
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