The Trump administration has built a nearly $4 billion subsidy for producing less energy.
The Associated Press reported Thursday that RWE will receive $1.22 billion to surrender offshore wind leases that could have supported about seven gigawatts of power, enough for more than 5 million homes. The company is putting $900 million into a liquefied natural gas project in Louisiana and $300 million into natural gas turbines. Add the RWE deal to five earlier agreements and the public commitment reaches about $3.9 billion.
Donald Trump could not stop offshore wind as quickly as he wanted through executive orders and agency suspensions. Courts kept getting in the way. His administration found another route: reimburse companies for abandoning clean energy leases, then steer the investment toward oil, gas, LNG, and other generation Trump prefers.
This is corporate welfare built to make the climate crisis worse.
The refunds buy fossil fuel investment
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum presents these agreements as a revolt against subsidies. His department says Americans deserve power that is affordable and reliable instead of energy that depends on public support.
The actual agreements replace one subsidy with another. In March, Interior promised TotalEnergies up to $928 million in reimbursement after the company invests the same amount in LNG, Gulf oil, and shale gas. TotalEnergies also agreed to stop pursuing new offshore wind projects in the United States.
In April, Interior offered Bluepoint Wind up to $765 million after an investment in LNG. Golden State Wind became eligible for about $120 million after an equal investment in oil, gas, energy infrastructure, or Gulf Coast LNG. Both companies agreed to stay out of new American offshore wind.
In June, Invenergy agreed to give up four leases in exchange for $765 million in partial reimbursement. The replacement investment includes natural gas plants in Indiana, Wisconsin, Iowa, Kansas, and Missouri. Duke Energy followed with a $129 million agreement that could fund nuclear power, gas generation, and grid upgrades in the Carolinas.
Some of those investments may produce useful power. Interior still chose the winner before writing the checks. It is conditioning federal reimbursements on investment in the energy sources Trump favors while eliminating leases for the source he has vowed to stop. The checks have fossil fuel strings attached.
Trump overruled the market
Offshore wind projects face serious economic problems. High interest rates, supply chain bottlenecks, transmission constraints, and expensive construction can turn a winning lease into a bad project. The government does not owe every developer a blank check, and some leases may need to be rebid or redesigned.
Trump chose a blanket attack instead. He issued a broad order blocking wind approvals when he returned to office. A federal judge later vacated it. His administration then suspended five projects already under construction or approaching construction, citing national security. Developers and states sued, and federal judges allowed all five projects to resume.
The buyouts appeared after those legal defeats. They achieve through payments what the administration could not achieve through unsupported stop orders.
States are challenging the payment mechanism too. New York alleges that Interior used the Judgment Fund, which pays certain court judgments and settlements, even though TotalEnergies had no lawsuit against the government. The state’s complaint says the administration skipped the hearing and findings that federal law requires before canceling an offshore lease for serious harm. Those allegations remain undecided. The statute does impose specific findings and compensation limits when Interior cancels a lease on those grounds.
The companies signed these settlements voluntarily. The government’s authority to offer them remains under challenge. A company will usually accept its money back when the president has made clear that permits will not arrive. The government first closed the road and then paid the stranded driver to buy a gas truck.
Reliability does not require sabotage
Burgum says reliability justifies the deals. Offshore wind is expensive to build, its output varies, and a growing grid needs power that can run when demand peaks. Gas plants can dispatch electricity on command. Nuclear and geothermal can provide steady generation. Those are real system planning concerns.
They do not justify paying companies to erase an entire clean energy option. The Energy Department’s own analysis says offshore wind has high capacity factors and strong winter production, which can complement solar and diversify the grid. Replacing a wind lease near New York with a gas plant in Missouri does not deliver power to the same customers or solve the same transmission problem.
More gas also means more exposure to fuel prices. The Energy Information Administration reports that natural gas often sets the marginal wholesale electricity price and that the benchmark Henry Hub price rose 56 percent in 2025. New England gas prices averaged twice their 2024 level. Wind has construction and financing costs, but nobody owns the wind and raises its price during a shortage.
Gas also creates far more climate pollution. The Energy Department reports that wind produces about 11 grams of carbon dioxide per kilowatt hour over its life cycle, compared with roughly 465 grams for natural gas. Replacing wind development with LNG and gas turbines locks in that difference before anyone turns on a light.
The public pays for the cancellation and the loss
The first cost is the reimbursement itself. The second is everything the surrendered leases could have produced.
New York says the canceled TotalEnergies project could have supplied more than 700,000 homes, created 1,716 jobs, and produced $10 billion in projected energy bill savings. Those are the state’s projections, not guaranteed results. They still represent years of planning that the federal government is paying to discard.
Ports, transmission planners, manufacturers, unions, and state agencies invested around a national offshore wind pipeline that the Energy Department measured at more than 80 gigawatts in 2024. Connecticut officials estimated that one Trump suspension at Revolution Wind cost ratepayers $350,000 for every day of delay and threatened more than 2,500 jobs nationally.
Trump is using government money to choose fossil fuels, punish clean energy, and make the public absorb the cost of his obsession with wind turbines.
Nearly $4 billion could build power, modernize a grid, lower bills, or help workers. Trump is spending it to make potential electricity disappear. Calling this “energy abundance” insults the phrase. Taxpayers finance the destruction while fossil fuel companies collect the reward.