The Trump administration is weighing a $1 billion payout to compensate TotalEnergies for canceled offshore wind leases, according to reports from the New York Times cited by Reuters. U.S. officials are reportedly 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.
The potential cancellation would remove significant offshore wind capacity from the development pipeline, though specific project capacities were not disclosed in available reports. The leases were awarded during the Biden administration's push to expand offshore wind development along the U.S. East Coast.
The proposed $1 billion compensation package would represent one of the largest financial unwindings of Biden-era clean energy infrastructure policy. The payments would come from the Justice Department, though the mechanism for such compensation was not detailed in the reports.
The potential lease cancellations signal a broader shift in federal energy policy under the Trump administration, moving away from offshore wind development that was a cornerstone of the previous administration's renewable energy strategy. The TotalEnergies projects were part of a larger federal initiative to establish offshore wind capacity along the Atlantic Coast.
This development comes as other states continue expanding renewable energy programs, with New Jersey recently announcing a 355-MW energy storage procurement and soliciting an additional 645 MW, alongside a 3-GW expansion of its community solar program.