Trump tries to bribe companies to abandon renewable energy projects

It's no secret that Donald Trump hates wind turbines, especially offshore ones. He has tried (and largely failed so far) to cancel a bunch of wind farms off the eastern US seaboard that were already in progress.

Now, though, he is setting his sights on cancelling offshore wind farms that are permitted but not yet begun. And this time, there's a twist.

Trump wants to cancel two large wind farms permitted by the Biden administration to the French oil/energy company TotalEnergies SE, one off the coast of New York, and one off North Carolina. His ploy now - or at least that of the Interior and Justice Departments, which just seem to follow Trump's every whim, no matter how random, foolish or financially imprudent - is to basically bribe the developers. 

The New York Times has viewed contracts drawn up with TotalEnergies that would see the company abandon the two wind farms (which would, between them, have powered over a million homes and businesses) and commit unspecified sums of money to investing in natural gas infrastructure in Texas instead (something they were doing anyway). To make TotalEnergies happy with this intervention and their loss of income, the Justice Department would pay them $795 million to abandon the New York project and a further $133 million for the North Carolina development. 

So, that's nearly a billion dollars of taxpayer money that Trump is making the government shell out just because ... well, we're not really sure why. There are no actual national security reasons or economic imperatives, whatever Trump may bluster. He has just decided that he doesn't like wind power, and his feckless administration humours him in it. And this, remember, in a so-called "energy emergency" that Trump himself declared last year.

Thing is, though, it's far from clear whether the Trump administration has the legal power to do this without the approval of Congress. We may not have heard the last of this.

UPDATE

Well, TotalEnergies backed down, accepted the bribes, and two more wind farms are now toast. You can totally see why the company might not want to pursue the wind projects in the face of such an antagonistic administration.

The winners: the US government and, in particular, Donald Trump. The losers: US taxpayers and electricity users, and the environment. The biggest disappointment: TotalEnergies. The biggest surprise: absolutely nothing.

UPDATE

The other anti-wind power policy Trump is currently pursuing is gratuitous delays in permitting. At least 30 wind farm developments are being deliberately delayed as the Trump administration sits on routine military reviews needed before the projects can be begun.

These reviews used to be considered a quick and routine rubber-stamping exercise, needed to confirm that the wind turbines will not interfere with military radar and aviation systems. But construction cannot start without these permits.

The increasing backlog and seemingly endless wait for routine permits makes it pretty clear that functionaries are being directed to stall wind projects on idealogical - not economic or military - grounds.