Under a deal disclosed in March, the Interior Department agreed to reimburse TotalEnergies $928 million, the sum the multinational paid the Biden administration for leases in federal waters to build offshore wind farms off New York and North Carolina.

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Seven Democratic-led US states are suing the Trump administration over its $1 billion deal with a French oil giant to end an offshore wind project.

Under the deal announced in March, the Interior Department would reimburse TotalEnergies $928 million, the sum the multinational paid the Biden administration for leases in federal waters to build offshore wind farms off New York and North Carolina. TotalEnergies, one of the world’s top six “supermajor” oil companies and one of the 20 largest historical emitters of planet-warming greenhouse gases, promised in turn to reinvest that money in oil and gas projects in the Texas and elsewhere in the US.

New York Attorney General Letitia James was joined by state attorneys general from Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Vermont in challenging the cancellation of the New York offshort farm, the largest of the two. They argue the deal is “illegal” and would result in higher energy costs for their states.

“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,” James said in a statement. “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.”

The New York project was estimated to deliver $25.6 billion in economic benefits to the state over its 25-year life, including $10 billion in savings on New Yorkers’ energy bills, according to the statement. It was also expected to create an estimated 1,716 new jobs in New York.

The TotalEnergies deal was just one of the many attempts by the Trump administration to to eliminate wind energy development in the country. The administration cited undisclosed national security concerns when it ordered five other wind farms along the East Coast to halt construction in December. Federal judges have since weighed in, dismissing the administration’s national security claims and ordering construction to resume. One judge called the suspension “arbitrary and capricious.”

Featured image: Wikimedia Commons.