An ongoing conflict between California and the Trump administration over the federal government’s deals to cancel offshore wind projects escalated this week.
On Friday, state Attorney General Rob Bonta, a Democrat, and the California Energy Commission announced a new lawsuit challenging the cancellation of Golden State Wind off the central California coast. The case was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
The legal challenge comes after the Interior Department revealed in April that it had agreed to pay Golden State Wind $120 million to abandon its project and invest instead in fossil fuel projects. Soon after the announcement, California signaled that it planned to challenge the decision in court.
Why it matters: The loss of the 2 gigawatt offshore project, which would have provided enough clean electricity to power more than 1 million homes, also means California will no longer receive more than $30 million in workforce development and other funds to local communities, the lawsuit says.
“Make no mistake, California won’t stand idly by while the Trump administration uses and abuses taxpayer dollars to dismantle an industry we’ve spent years building,” said Bonta during a press conference Friday. “We’ll continue to fight back.”
The state has also invested more than $100 million to upgrade its ports, transmission systems and other infrastructure in preparation for the influx of new clean energy from Golden State Wind, the lawsuit says. The decision to cancel the project will threaten that investment, as well as tens of thousands of jobs the wind farm was expected to bring to the state, according to the lawsuit.
“What the Trump administration has done here is both reckless and unlawful, and it’s attacking a really important pillar of our clean energy future,” said David Hochschild, chair of the California Energy Commission.
Digging deeper: The lawsuit is the latest challenge to the Trump administration’s concerted assault on offshore wind development. The federal government has canceled a half-dozen projects in early stages of development around the country, leading to investigations by Democratic lawmakers into alleged misuse of the Treasury Department’s Judgment Fund used to reach legal settlements.
The deals come after the administration’s efforts to halt the construction of five projects nearing completion were repeatedly blocked by federal courts early this year.
Interior does not comment on litigation as a matter of policy and Golden State Wind could not be immediately reached for comment.
California alleged in its case that Interior violated the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act’s restrictions on canceling offshore wind leases. The state also claimed that Interior could not use the Judgment Fund to pay Ocean Winds $120 million because the agency was not settling an active lawsuit with the project’s developer.
“The Judgment Fund is not the president’s piggy bank,” Bonta said. “The Constitution gives Congress, not the president, the power to decide how taxpayer dollars are spent.”