Trump team weighs paying $1B to get companies to stop off-shore wind farm projects

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: msn/The Independent

Tuesday 17 March 2026 17:51 EDT


The White House is reportedly preparing to pay nearly $1 billion to an energy giant to abandon major offshore wind projects, moving from legal challenges to direct financial settlements.

After federal judges blocked five previous attempts by the Trump administration to halt wind farms currently under construction along the East Coast, senior officials are now drafting agreements to pay TotalEnergies to walk away from its leases. According to documents reviewed by The New York Times, the proposed settlements would see the Justice Department pay more than $928 million to the French energy firm.

The deal would effectively terminate the Attentive Energy project off the coast of New York and the Carolina Long Bay project in North Carolina. In exchange for the payout — which serves as a reimbursement for lease bids won during the Biden era — TotalEnergies would not only scrap its wind plans but also commit to "accelerated investments" in natural gas infrastructure in Texas.

“It is quite unusual for the administration to do this cash outlay, seemingly just because Trump doesn’t like offshore wind,” John Leshy, a former general counsel for the Interior Department, told The New York Times. This new buyout approach follows a string of courtroom defeats for the administration.

Read more: https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/general/trump-team-weighs-paying-1b-to-stop-wind-farm-projects/ar-AA1YRa8p

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Where is this "$1 billion" coming from?

How about taking that "$1 billion" and rehiring some feds or putting it back into ACA subsidies?

[eppur_se_muova]

1. "quite unusual" ?? MERCIFUL HEAVENS, NO !! "Quite unusual" is way beyond what we can handle !!

How about totally freakin' unprecedented ? Unjustified and unjustifiable ? How about totally freakin' STUPID ?!?

Or -- since it's Trmp -- how about just OUTRIGHT FREAKIN' INSANE ?? He's basically BRIBING a company to shut down a project -- like paying off an athlete to throw a game, but with much bigger, more serious real-world consequences. Trmp tries to control people (and companies) with threats and bribes because such brutally simple-minded approaches are the only ones simple enough for him to understand. HE. CAN. NOT. GOVERN. in any meaningful sense of the term. He blusters, threatens, and deals in bribes, which will never be an adequate substitute for actual thoughtful, informed, well-planned policies and actions.

He is a FAILED LEADER. Nothing less.

[Walleye]

2. As I said, Trump believes every dollar in the US treasury belongs to him. Not kidding.

[twodogsbarking]

3. Riding a bicycle will now be illegal.

[sop]

4. Let's just call this another government subsidy (paid for by taxpayers) to the fossil fuel interests, to eliminate

competition from renewable energy projects.

[Old Crank]

5. Just another moronic move

that will keep the US a third rate country.
We will poison the air and land for corporate profit above all.

[Kid Berwyn]

6. He WANTS to destroy planet earth.

Sicko.

[travelingthrulife]

7. More theft and fraud.

Where's DOGE?

[Diamond_Dog]

8. Every day we hear "a billion here, a billion there."

Where are all these billions coming from to cater to this demented traitor’s whims? Congress surely should be doing something about this outright robbery, but of course they are so mysteriously cowed by this sicko they can’t get their heads out of his ass.

Regular Americans are struggling, yet he throws around billions for his pet projects and bribes like it’s nothing.

[SomewhereInTheMiddle]

9. I assume this money is coming from the congressionally appropriated "Random Bribes" line item. How big is that fund? nt?