Ocasio-Cortez, Markey Ask Trump Admin to Explain Paying TotalEnergies USD 1 Billion ‘in Taxpayer Money’ to Drop Offshore Wind Projects

US lawmakers Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ed Markey have sent a letter to Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum on the plan by the Trump administration to pay nearly USD 1 billion to TotalEnergies to cancel offshore wind projects off the US East Coast, calling on the administration to stop the payment and explain the legal basis and funding source for the proposed transfer.

As reported recently, the US government’s agreement with TotalEnergies concerns the company’s exit from offshore wind development in the country by relinquishing leases for projects off New York/New Jersey and North Carolina, for which the administration intends to pay approximately USD 928 million.

The agreement also stipulates that TotalEnergies would redirect that money to oil & gas projects in the US. The company, in a press release issued after signing the agreement with the government, indicated that it would invest proceeds from the payment into a liquefied natural gas export facility in Texas and other oil and gas activities in the US that will support both domestic supply and the demand in Europe.

There are also reports that the US government is considering similar arrangements with other offshore wind developers holding federal leases with projects at a similar stage of development to those developed by TotalEnergies.

In their letter dated 31 March, the lawmakers questioned the authority of the Department of the Interior to use taxpayer funds for such a payment and requested clarification on whether Congress had appropriated funding for this purpose. According to Ocasio-Cortez and Markey, the administration had not explained the legal justification for the payment or the origin of the funding.

“With the TotalEnergies payoff, the Trump administration promises an extraordinary transfer of taxpayer dollars to a foreign company to halt private offshore wind development and prop up fossil fuel company exports and profits. It has done so with no explanation of its authority—or the source of the funding—to transmit $1 billion to a private company”, Ocasio-Cortez and Markey wrote in the letter.

“Moreover, TotalEnergies has made clear it will plow these taxpayer-funded proceeds into expanded oil and gas development, including a Texas liquefied natural gas export facility, effectively using U.S. public funds to ship American energy overseas, strain domestic supply, weaken grid reliability, and expose American families to higher and more volatile prices.”

The lawmakers also asked for evidence supporting the administration’s claim that the offshore wind projects posed a national security concern and noted that offshore wind farms contribute to domestic energy supply and employment.

For the two TotalEnergies projects, the lawmakers pointed out that they could have generated enough electricity to power more than one million homes and businesses in New York and New Jersey and around 300,000 in North Carolina. They also highlighted the energy capacity brought to the grid by two new projects that recently reached milestones: Vineyard Wind 1 and Revolution Wind.

“Earlier this month, our country hit two major offshore wind milestones: Vineyard Wind 1 completed construction off the coast of Massachusetts, and Revolution Wind started sending power to the grid for Connecticut and Rhode Island. Combined, the two projects are projected to deliver more than 1,500 clean megawatts of electricity, enough to power 750,000 homes across the region”, Ocasio-Cortez and Markey said in the letter on 31 March.

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