NOTE: This is the second part of a two-part series exploring the Trump administration’s “arbitrary and capricious” attacks on U.S. offshore wind. Read Part 1. — AW
How is the Trump administration using your money to raise your energy bills?
After five consecutive failed attempts in court to stop five offshore wind projects from being completed, the Trump administration tried a different approach this spring: It gave a company $928 million to abandon its plans altogether.
Since then, a rash of similar “deals” for companies to give up their leases for offshore wind projects have followed, totalling nearly $4 billion now — all in taxpayer dollars.
Several of these deals specifically went to companies that also have fossil fuels in their portfolios, and all seven have since poured those taxpayer dollars into more polluting energy production or processing. TotalEnergies even “pledged not to develop any new offshore wind projects” in the U.S., essentially making these buyouts an indirect investment in fossil fuels, Phelps Turner, Environmental Defense Fund’s U.S. Clean Energy Attorney, said.
The money for this is coming out of the federal Judgment Fund, a money pool Congress set up to pay legal settlements when the government loses in court.
But there’s just one problem: the government didn’t lose anything. A coalition of states sued the government in June, arguing the buyouts are an illegal use of the fund since there was no litigation to settle, just a payout engineered to slash the offshore wind industry.
You get to pay twice
Everyday Americans did lose, though.
An offshore wind project, just like the ones the administration paid to terminate, saved New England customers $2 million a day during a blustery cold snap this winter.
Turbines generate power based on how often the wind is blowing, and offshore wind blows “almost all the time,” Turner said. Offshore energy supply is not only abundant, then, but it’s highly reliable. Paired with storage, it can strengthen the reliability of the whole electric system.
Using taxpayer money to obstruct this supply means we pay twice. Once through the buyout itself — and then again through the cheaper electricity no one will ever get to use because it will never be produced.
‘Chilling effect’
But the damage isn’t only personal, Turner said.
Another risk is the “chilling effect” the approach creates as companies grow wary of investing in new projects, not wanting to get dragged into expensive, protracted legal battles. That hesitancy puts the future of offshore wind, and its cost-saving potential for ratepayers, on even shakier ground.
As Green Energy Consumer Alliance’s executive director Larry Chretien said, “The actions of the administration have affected the market broadly. Fewer developers are willing to try to build a project, and it’s unclear when the next one will move forward.”
“It’s another example of the question: why would an entity interested in maximizing profits and interested in legal, financial and permitting certainty want to enter this space?” Turner said. “I think they’re going to see a lot of risk, and they’re not going to want to invest in this industry because of these contractual arrangements.”
Even in the best-case scenario — developers coming back to the table and resuming projects once there’s a new, less-hostile administration — the delays and buyouts send a signal to developers eyeing the industry: get involved, and you might end up stuck in a resource-draining, years-long holdup.
“It doesn’t make sense [if you’re just looking at it from a bottom-line perspective] to not develop offshore wind,” Turner said. “We all want the lights to stay on, and we all want electricity to be cheaper. Offshore wind really helps with both of those things.”
Amisha Kumar, Environmental Defense Fund’s Healthy Communities communications intern this summer, is an MIT Science Writing master’s student whose work has appeared in The Baltimore Banner, Boston Business Journal and ProPublica, among others.
