Posted on September 24, 2026
By Taylor Mills
A coalition of states sued the Trump administration Tuesday over three separate settlements with offshore wind companies to cancel their project leases in exchange for over $1.5 billion in taxpayer funds.
California, New York, New Jersey, and six other states alleged the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management unlawfully bought out leases with three Invenergy units and one lease with Bluepoint Wind LLC through “backroom deals” barred under the Judgment Fund Act. The settlements require the renewable developers to invest the amount recouped in fossil fuel or geothermal projects.
The agency doesn’t have the authority to reimburse offshore lease fees or direct the refunded money to be spent on fossil fuel projects that have nothing to do with federal waters, according to the complaints.
They are the latest in a string of litigation targeting the Trump administration’s cancellation of offshore lease developments through the Judgment Fund, a money pool managed by the Treasury Department that operates on a permanent appropriation from Congress.
The Interior Department, which houses BOEM, also inked similar deals with TotalEnergies SE and Golden State Wind LLC. All settlements allow companies to recover their offshore wind losses only if they invest the same amount of money in liquefied natural gas projects, energy infrastructure, or other domestic fossil fuel assets.
California challenged the nearly $112 million deal to scrap Invenergy’s Morro Bay Wind Energy Area development in the US District Court for the Northern District of California. New York and the state coalition sued over the $653 million deal with Invenergy in the US District Court for the District of Maine, while the complaint against the $765 million settlement with Bluepoint was filed in the US District Court for the Eastern District of New York.
The deals “sabotage states’ ability to meet growing energy demands,” according to a statement from New York Attorney General Letitia James (D).
California said it has already invested over $100 million to update its ports, transmission systems, and industries to support offshore wind development.
“California is not here to foot the bill — we have the receipts and we’re asking the court to strike down this blatantly unlawful deal,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta (D) said in a statement.
The cases are California v. Interior, N.D. Cal., No. 4:26-cv-10778, complaint filed 9/22/26, New York v. Interior, E.D.N.Y., No. 1:26-cv-05851, complaint filed 9/22/26, and New York v. Interior, D. Me., 9/22/26.
