House Democrats are accusing the Trump administration of concocting national security concerns to justify paying $1 billion to take back a company’s offshore wind leases.
Rep. Jared Huffman of California, the top Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee, cited emails Wednesday that he said show the Interior Department had discussed a plan to end the leases last year nearly two weeks before the agency said it first heard national-security-related concerns about the potential wind farms off the coasts of New York and North Carolina from the Department of Defense.
The argument was part of a strategy Wednesday by the panel’s Democrats to refocus a GOP-led hearing on attorneys’ fees that environmental groups get from the federal government after successful litigation.
The minority used the hearing to discuss the offshore wind lease cancellations and the $1.8 billion Justice Department “Anti-Weaponization Fund” created this week to settle a lawsuit against the government by President Donald Trump.
