Seven American states, all Democrats, took legal action against a financial agreement negotiated between TotalEnergies and the American government in exchange for the renunciation of offshore wind turbine projects.
L’agreement reached between TotalEnergies and the Trump administration to abandon two offshore wind projects for the benefit of investments in conventional energies is the subject of a legal challenge. Seven American states request its cancellationbelieving that its financing is based on an illegal system.
An unprecedented agreement between TotalEnergies and the Trump administration
A few months after suspended several wind projects offshore in the United States, TotalEnergies finds itself at the heart of a legal battle of magnitude. A coalition of seven American states, led by New Yorkhas just taken the matter to federal justice in order to cancel the agreement concluded at the end of March between the French group and the Trump administration.
THE device provides that TotalEnergies can recover the 928 million dollars paid in 2022 to obtain two wind concessions located off the coast of New York and North Carolina. In return, the group will have to justify an equivalent amount of investments made in the United States in so-called conventional energies, in particular oil and gas, between November 2025 and September 2026.
At the time of its signing, the agreement was presented as a satisfactory solution for both parties. For TotalEnergies, it made it possible to secure the sums committed to projects that had become particularly uncertain in a political context unfavorable to wind power. offshore.
Democratic states denounce misappropriation of public funds
THE authorities of the complaining States consider, however, that this agreement goes beyond the legal framework. In their appeal, they believe that the federal administration cannot use public money to compensate for the abandonment of investments in renewable energies and encourage their redeployment towards hydrocarbons.
The Attorney General of New York, Letitia James, accuses the federal government of having put in place a mechanism intended to indirectly finance a energy reorientation contrary to the climate goals of several East Coast states : “after suffering several defeats in court, this government concocted a bogus deal to pay a foreign energy company hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to abandon offshore wind and invest instead in oil and gas“, she denounces. Same story with the governor of New York, Kathy Hochul, who sees a “scandalous misappropriation of taxpayer dollars that prevents us from meeting our energy needs, creating quality jobs, and helping to ensure American energy independence while reducing emissions“.
Offshore wind power victim of American energy change course
This case illustrates the consequences of change in energy doctrine occurred after Donald Trump’s return to the White House. Very critical of offshore wind power, the American president quickly called into question several projects developed on the Atlantic coast.
Faced with this new regulatory situation, TotalEnergies had chosen a path different from that taken by several European energy companies, notably Orsted and Equinor, who initiated legal proceedings against the American administration. Patrick Pouyanné then defended an approach based on negotiationbelieving that a transactional solution offered more visibility than potentially long and uncertain litigation.
The outcome of this news procedure could now have consequences well beyond the sole case of TotalEnergies : it is likely to become a major precedent for all developers involved in major renewable energy projects in the United Stateswhile the sector faces an increasingly changing political and regulatory environment.
