Maine and six other states have joined New York in a lawsuit against the Trump administration over a maneuver to kill offshore wind developments and steer energy developers toward fossil fuel enterprises.
In a pair of lawsuits, filed in New York and Maine, attorneys general from the states claim the administration illegally used $1.4 billion in public funding to pay two companies that planned to build offshore wind developments on the East Coast to instead invest in fossil fuel plants in other parts of the country.
The states argue that the payments, in addition to being illegal, will deprive them of electricity that they needed from the offshore wind developments.
The first lawsuit, filed in federal court in the Eastern District of New York, challenges a deal in which the U.S. Department of the Interior canceled a lease to Bluepoint Wind off the coast of New York, and in exchange paid the company $765 million from a public fund that New York officials describe as being “reserved for legitimate legal settlements.” Bluepoint is planning to use the money to build a liquefied natural gas facility and has agreed not to pursue future offshore wind developments in the United States, according to the New York AG’s office.
The second lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Maine, challenges a similar deal with Invenergy that canceled three offshore wind leases in exchange for paying the company $653 million from the same fund, which the company plans to put toward natural gas plants in the Midwest and geothermal projects in the West.
Invenergy’s offshore wind leases included two in the Gulf of Maine, for which the company paid $11 million, in addition to leases off the coast of New York and New Jersey.
Other plaintiffs named in the lawsuits, including attorneys general from Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Vermont, which are part of the electrical grid that would have benefitted from power generated by the offshore wind farms.
