Trump administration will pay a French company $1 billion in taxpayer funds to not build wind farms | CNN

The Trump administration announced it will pay nearly $1 billion to French energy giant TotalEnergies in exchange for the company abandoning plans to build offshore wind farms in the Atlantic Ocean and instead pursue fossil fuel projects in the US. The current administration has thrown up roadblocks at every turn for offshore wind projects; a type of energy that President Donald Trump has personally reviled for years. After trying and failing to block construction on more mature projects, this announcement is the first sign of a new strategy: The federal government is paying to stop wind farms before they begin. Last year, the Trump Interior Department took the step of stopping the approval of federal permits for renewable energy projects, a move that effectively killed offshore wind projects in early development. Monday’s deal builds on that, by trying to ensure companies can’t continue building under a future administration friendlier to offshore wind. The government is paying back TotalEnergies for federal leases it purchased under the Biden administration to develop two offshore wind farms off the coasts of New York and North Carolina. The Justice Department will use nearly