New York leads 7-state lawsuit over $1 B offshore wind deal

New York, leading a coalition of six other states, filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against the Trump administration over a federal agreement that canceled a major offshore wind energy lease. The legal challenge targets a deal announced in March in which the Interior Department agreed to pay approximately $1 billion to the French energy company TotalEnergies to terminate its offshore wind projects.

The agreement reimbursed TotalEnergies for leases it held off the coasts of New York and North Carolina. In exchange, the company agreed to abandon those wind projects, refrain from developing new offshore wind projects in the United States, and invest in fossil fuel infrastructure. The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, names administration officials including Interior Secretary Doug Burgum as defendants.

New York Attorney General Letitia James, who is leading the coalition, called the arrangement a sham deal. She argued it unlawfully uses taxpayer dollars to pressure a foreign company to abandon clean energy in favor of oil and gas, threatening over a thousand union jobs and cheating millions of New Yorkers out of clean, affordable energy. New York...