New York-led lawsuit challenges Trump’s offshore wind buyouts

In March 2026, after a string of court losses in its crusade against wind energy, the administration struck a deal with TotalEnergies to cancel two offshore wind leases and pay the company nearly US$1Bn in taxpayer dollars.

In exchange, TotalEnergies agreed to walk away from offshore wind, invest hundreds of millions of dollars in oil and gas projects, and pledge not to develop any new offshore wind projects in the US. 

TotalEnergies subsidiary Attentive Energy would have developed the New York lease, and the project was expected to deliver clean energy directly to New York City, power more than 700,000 New York homes, and generate billions of dollars in benefits for New Yorkers. 

Joining New York Attorney General Letitia James in the lawsuit are the attorneys general of Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Vermont. They argue that the deal is blatantly unlawful and are asking the court to strike it down.

New York State Governor Kathy Hochul said, “This pay-not-to-play scheme pressuring a foreign company to forego planned offshore wind projects in America in favour of gas and oil drilling is an outrageous abuse of taxpayer dollars that hurts our ability to meet our energy needs, create good jobs, and help secure American energy independence while reducing emissions.

“Attorney General James and I will continue to aggressively fight back against Donald Trump’ss overt and never-ending hostility toward offshore wind, including his unlawful use of the most powerful office in the world to get private companies like TotalEnergies to bow to his will.”

Attorney General James said, “The Trump administration is once again trying to kill clean energy projects and destroy good-paying jobs for New Yorkers. After repeatedly losing in court, this administration cooked up a sham deal to pay a foreign energy company hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to abandon offshore wind and invest in oil and gas instead. We are fighting back to stop this illegal agreement that threatens to erase over a thousand union jobs and cheat millions of New Yorkers out of clean, affordable energy.”

In 2022, Attentive Energy paid US$795M to acquire an offshore wind lease approximately 47 miles off the coast of New York, as part of the highest-grossing competitive offshore energy lease sale in US history. The lease area was expected to support two projects: Attentive Energy One, which would have delivered energy directly to New York City, and Attentive Energy Two, which would have served New Jersey. The Attentive Energy One project was estimated to deliver US$25.6Bn in economic benefits to New York state over its 25-year life, including US$10Bn in savings on New Yorkers’ energy bills. The project was also expected to create an estimated 1,716 new jobs in New York.

In March 2026, more than four years after the lease was awarded and with construction plans already under review, the US Department of the Interior (DOI) announced that it had reached an agreement with TotalEnergies to cancel the Attentive Energy lease and a separate lease off the coast of North Carolina. 

The DOI claimed that new national security concerns justified the cancellation, even though the federal government had already reviewed and approved the lease area after years of analysis and consultation. Under the agreement, TotalEnergies would invest approximately US$795M in fossil fuel projects, while the federal government would unlawfully ‘reimburse’ the company with US$795M from the Judgment Fund, which may be used only to settle claims related to ongoing or imminent litigation. The administration also announced that TotalEnergies had pledged not to develop any new offshore wind projects in the US.

Attorney General James and the coalition assert that the cancellation of the Attentive Energy projects will harm their states’ economies, energy grids, and climate goals. They say offshore wind is a critical part of New York’s plan to meet growing electricity demand, especially in New York City, where Attentive Energy One was expected to deliver power directly. New York’s State Energy Plan projects that electricity demand will continue to rise significantly in coming years, and offshore wind is expected to play a major role in ensuring that the state has enough energy to meet that demand. 

The attorneys general argue that the Trump administration’s deal violated the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, which limits DOI’s ability to cancel offshore wind leases. DOI must hold a hearing, specifically find that continuing the lease would likely cause serious harm to life, property, national security, or the environment, and determine that the benefits of cancellation outweigh the benefits of allowing the lease to continue. DOI did none of that before cancelling the Attentive Energy lease. 

The coalition also argues that the deal violates the Judgment Fund Act because the US$795M payment was not a legitimate compromise settlement in an imminent lawsuit, but rather a contrived arrangement to satisfy the president’s personal opposition to wind energy.

Attorney General James and the coalition are asking the court to strike down the agreement, vacate the lease cancellation and stop the administration from taking further action to implement the deal.

Responding to the lawsuit, Oceantic Network president and chief executive Liz Burdock said, “For more than a year, offshore wind has faced an unprecedented and unrelenting campaign of political interference despite billions in private investment, state commitments, and court rulings. These continued attacks on offshore wind are not just an assault on a single industry – they are an attack on American workers, energy affordability, national security, and the states’ right to shape their own energy future. 

“We commend the Northeast Governors for standing up again against actions that threaten jobs, investment, and the nation’s ability to meet growing electricity demand with an affordable and reliable energy source.”

Oceantic estimates the cancellation of a single 1 GW offshore wind project permanently erases US$8.5–$9.5Bn in US economic output, based on peer reviewed modelling and operational project benchmarks from the East Coast. On average, about 3,350 construction jobs nationwide are lost, with substantial impacts on the in-state workforce depending on the project’s location, accompanied by hundreds of millions of dollars in lost wages.