The Trump administration appears to have officially paid TotalEnergies nearly $1 billion for agreeing to cancel two of its offshore wind projects along the Eastern Seaboard.
The Interior Department reached a deal with the French energy company in March to cancel leases for its New York Bight and Carolina Long Bay projects. The company instead agreed to focus its investments on fossil fuel projects in the United States.
Interior has faced sharp scrutiny for its process reaching the deal, which some lawmakers and legal experts have panned as illegal.
According to recent filings on the Treasury Department’s Judgment Fund payment webpage, the government spent a total of $928 million to settle express contract violations by Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. The agency had agreed to pay Total $795 million for the New York project and $133 million for the North Carolina project.
