Trump again chickens out, this time from appealing a federal court ruling that found illegal his moratorium on federal permits for wind power projects:
In a brief order Monday, the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted the Interior Department’s request to drop its appeal of a lower court ruling that had invalidated the administration’s “wind directive” pausing new development.
Interior did not provide an explanation in its court filing for why it was abandoning the case. Its decision comes as federal judges have repeatedly struck down the Trump administration’s efforts to halt authorizations and construction on existing projects.
The Democratic attorneys general of Massachusetts and New York — who were part of an 18-member coalition that sued over the wind directive last year — applauded the ruling out of the Boston-based court as a win for renewable energy in their states.
“New York’s wind projects will create jobs, strengthen our economy, and bring down New Yorkers’ electric bills,” said New York Attorney General Letitia James, who led the state coalition.
The Empire State has made offshore wind a central part of its plan to slash climate pollution and meet growing energy demand, and James vowed to “continue to fight any attempt to undermine that progress.”
Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell said her state has directed hundreds of millions of dollars into offshore wind development, “and the court correctly protected those critical investments from the Trump administration’s unlawful order.”
Campbell said the administration’s decision to drop the appeal and the court’s formal dismissal “will preserve well-paying clean energy jobs and ensure access to reliable, affordable energy as Massachusetts continues to advance its climate goals” [Niina H. Farah and Lesley Clark, “States Claim Victory as Trump Admin Ends Wind Court Fight,” E&E News by Politico, 2026.06.15].
Trump may have surrendered in court, but he’s still fighting the future with cash, using our tax dollars to bribe companies not to invest in wind power projects:
The department announced in March that it would pay French company TotalEnergies $928 million to cancel two wind projects off the New York and North Carolina coasts. In exchange, the company agreed to focus its investments on liquefied natural gas in the Gulf Coast. The following month, Interior reached a similar deal with Ocean Winds to refund the company’s $915 million investment for two wind projects off the New York and California coasts. The company also agreed to focus investments on “conventional energy projects” [Niina H. Farah, “Trump Is Paying Companies to Quit Offshore Wind. These Projects Could Be Next,” E&E News by Politico, 2026.05.26].
New York and six other East Coast states are suing Trump over the TotalEnergies bribe:
“The Trump administration is once again trying to kill clean energy projects and destroy good-paying jobs for New Yorkers,” said Attorney General James. “After repeatedly losing in court, this administration cooked up a sham deal to pay a foreign energy company hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to abandon offshore wind and invest in oil and gas instead. We are fighting back to stop this illegal agreement that threatens to erase over a thousand union jobs and cheat millions of New Yorkers out of clean, affordable energy.”
…“This pay-not-to-play scheme pressuring a foreign company to forego planned offshore wind projects in America in favor of gas and oil drilling is an outrageous abuse of taxpayer dollars that hurts our ability to meet our energy needs, create good jobs, and help secure American energy independence while reducing emissions,” said Governor Hochul. “Attorney General James and I will continue to aggressively fight back against Donald Trump’s overt and never-ending hostility toward offshore wind, including his unlawful use of the most powerful office in the world to get private companies like TotalEnergies to bow to his will.”
In 2022, Attentive Energy paid $795 million to purchase an offshore wind lease approximately 47 miles off the coast of New York, as part of the highest-grossing competitive offshore energy lease sale in United States history. The lease area was expected to support two projects: Attentive Energy One, which would have delivered energy directly to New York City, and Attentive Energy Two, which would have served New Jersey. The Attentive Energy One project was estimated to deliver $25.6 billion in economic benefits to New York state over its 25-year life, including $10 billion in savings on New Yorkers’ energy bills. The project was also expected to create an estimated 1,716 new jobs in New York.
In March 2026, more than four years after the lease was awarded and with construction plans already under review, the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) suddenly announced that it had reached an agreement with TotalEnergies to cancel the Attentive Energy lease and a separate lease off the coast of North Carolina. The DOI claimed that new national security concerns justified the cancellation, even though the federal government had already reviewed and approved the lease area after years of analysis and consultation. Under the agreement, TotalEnergies would invest approximately $795 million in fossil fuel projects, while the federal government would unlawfully “reimburse” the company with $795 million from the Judgment Fund, which may be used only to settle claims related to ongoing or imminent litigation. The administration also announced that TotalEnergies had pledged not to develop any new offshore wind projects in the United States [New York State Attorney General’s Office, press release, 2026.06.02].
Let’s hope AG James and her future- and constitution-minded colleagues continue to win in court against our recklessly wasteful President.
You know of course that trump is a member of the Massai tribe. No shit.