Seven US states led by New York sued the Trump administration on Tuesday for cancelling a major offshore wind lease off the coast of New York in exchange for a pledge by its owner to invest instead in fossil fuel projects.
The lawsuit in the Washington, DC federal court challenges a March 23 decision by the US Department of the Interior to cancel a lease by a subsidiary of France's TotalEnergies, "reimburse," $795 million to the company, and extract a pledge from the company not to develop new offshore wind projects in the United States.
Total also agreed to spend nearly $1 billion on a Texas LNG plant and on US oil and gas drilling.
The deal represented a new strategy in the administration's wide-ranging effort to stop development of US offshore wind projects, which President Donald Trump has said he finds ugly and expensive. His administration has sought to increase domestic fossil fuel production.
The Justice Department declined to comment on the lawsuit.
The project, known as Attentive Energy, would have generated enough power for 1.3 million homes in New York and New Jersey, the states alleged.
In addition to New York, the suing states include New Jersey, Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Vermont.
According to the complaint, the states allege the administration failed to follow proper administrative processes and misused a government fund reserved for legal settlements even though there was no litigation between the parties.
"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," New York Governor Kathy Hochul said in a statement.
Offshore wind projects themselves, however, have faced criticism for relying heavily on taxpayer subsidies while remaining significantly more costly than conventional energy sources.
Officials from the Interior Department and TotalEnergies did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York and Nichola Groom in Los Angeles; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, Rod Nickel and Baird Maritime)
