The Trump Administration Spends $1B in Taxpayers’ Money to Cancel Clean Energy Project
How do you punish North Carolinians’ pocketbooks and health, and American taxpayers, with one stupid decision?
It’s simple: You take a billion dollars of taxpayer money and pay a foreign corporation not to build clean offshore wind energy off the North Carolina and New York coasts.
The Trump Anti-Wind Mania Rides Again
Last week, the Trump Administration agreed to pay a French energy development corporation (TotalEnergies) $1 billion of taxpayer money to give up its leases on two tracts of Atlantic coast wind energy development rights, including one off Wilmington, NC.
The TotalEnergies press statement reads like a quote from the MAGA dirty energy playbook: “Considering that the development of offshore wind projects is not in the country’s interest, we have decided to renounce offshore wind development in the United States,” said Patrick Pouyanné, CEO of TotalEnergies. Instead, the company will make investments in exploiting gas fields in and around Texas, which “will contribute to supplying Europe with much needed (liquified natural gas) from the U.S. and provide gas for U.S. data center development. We believe this is a more efficient use of capital in the United States.” In other words, the Trump Administration told them that it would fight their wind energy project, but would pay them to develop methane gas fields instead.
Environmental Advocates Speak Out
“While North Carolinians face skyrocketing energy bills, President Trump is continuing to block the cheapest and quickest forms of energy production: solar and wind,” said Dan Crawford, senior director of public affairs for the N.C. League of Conservation Voters.
Other environmental advocates echoed this criticism.
“At a time when electricity demand is surging and grid reliability is under increasing strain, canceling offshore wind projects already under development puts North Carolina’s clean energy economy at risk. We have seen first-hand how offshore wind has bolstered the U.S. grid this winter by providing zero cost fuel (energy) during extreme winter weather that caused other fuel prices to spike. Now is the time to be expanding our options, not taking them away,” noted Katharine Collins, president of the Southeastern Wind Coalition. “This decision has implications beyond North Carolina. The offshore wind industry already represents billions in private investment and a major opportunity to strengthen U.S. energy reliability and economic competitiveness – taking this option away only puts jobs, infrastructure, and future capacity at risk.”
“This unprecedented deal is a lose-lose-lose for the American people,” said Sara Chieffo, SVP of Government Affairs at the League of Conservation Voters (LCV). “The Trump administration is taking $1 billion of our taxpayer money to stop affordable clean energy from coming online and to expand dirty, expensive, and volatile fossil fuels. We should be investing in homegrown, unlimited, renewable energy that helps insulate working families from price spikes. Instead, the Trump administration is lining the pockets of fossil fuel billionaires, and driving even more toxic pollution into frontline communities.”
“The Trump Administration is spending nearly $1 billion in taxpayer money to pay off a company to stop investments in the clean energy we need,” said Governor Josh Stein. “This is a terrible deal for the people of North Carolina and our country.”
Promoting Dirty Coal Plants While Canceling Clean Wind Projects
Meanwhile, the Trump Administration is issuing “emergency” orders requiring that dirty, expensive, and outdated coal plants slated for retirement instead stay open. Under Trump, the U.S. Department of Energy is blocking the scheduled retirement of coal plants in Colorado, Indiana, Michigan and Washington state.
“Rather than allowing the realities on the ground, the regulators and the utilities to make rational decisions about how to meet energy needs, we have the Trump administration trying to do Soviet-style central planning to push an ideological agenda that will drive costs to customers,” said Will Toor, executive director of the Colorado Energy Office.
If the Trump Administration continues to issue (and is allowed to enforce) such orders, this dirty energy strategy could block the retirement of as many as 90 aging coal and other fossil-fueled plants by the end of 2028, costing Americans $3 billion to $6 billion.
The Sierra Club’s “Burning Money” tracker, showing how much these emergency extension orders have cost us to date, had exceeded $383 million as of last week. You can check the updated total here.
Demand Clean, Affordable Energy
What can citizen advocates do? We can let the NC Utilities Commission know that we’re fed up with paying more for dirty, expensive fossil-fuel power over clean, renewable energy.
Submit your comments here, and be sure to include the Docket numbers for the Duke Energy rate hike hearings: E-2 SUB 1300 for Duke Energy Progress and Docket E-7 Sub 1276 for Duke Energy Carolinas.
If you are in the triangle, we are putting on a press conference with U.S. Representative Deborah Ross and N.C. Senator Jay Chaudhuri on March 30th at 4pm. Get all the details here.
