--- title: "Trump Administration Would Rather Pay a Billion Dollars Than Build a Single Wind Farm" description: "The Trump administration announced it would pay French energy giant TotalEnergies nearly a billion dollars to abandon its wind farms." date: "2026-03-24" modified: "2026-03-24" authors: - name: "Frank Landymore" job_title: "Contributing Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/flandymore" url: "https://futurism.com/science-energy/trump-billion-dollar-wind-farms" categories: - "Energy" - "Renewable Energy" - "Science & Energy" - "Wind" --- # Trump Administration Would Rather Pay a Billion Dollars Than Build a Single Wind Farm ![A long row of offshore wind turbines extends into the distance over a deep blue sea under a clear sky. The turbines are painted bright yellow-green, with large blades and tall cylindrical towers anchored in the water. Several ships are visible far in the background on the horizon.]() *Illustration by Tag Hartman-Simkins / Futurism. Source: Getty* Donald Trump's Quixotic [hatred of wind power]() is breezing up once again. On Monday, the administration said it will pay the French energy company TotalEnergies nearly $1 billion *not* to build wind farms, the [*New York Times* reports](). In the "unusual" deal, announced by the Interior Department, TotalEnergies will forfeit its leases in federal waters for two wind farms off the coast off New York and North Carolina. In exchange, the Justice Department will give it a refund for the ages: $928 million, the amount it paid for the leases during the Biden administration. In fact, the money will be redirected straight into dead dinosaurs. As part of the deal, TotalEnergies agreed to invest the money in oil and gas projects in the US, and ramp up production of oil in the Gulf of Mexico. And of course, AI figures into this somehow: it would also build more gas-burning power plants to meet the electricity demand from data centers, per the *NYT*. Fishy as the arrangement may smell, TotalEnergies CEO Patrick Pouyanné insists that, actually, it wanted to back out of the wind farms anyway. Since winning the leases, he told the *NYT*, the company had since concluded that offshore wind was "not the most affordable way to produce electricity," and that pursuing it in the US is too "expensive." But have no fear, green energy fans. He's simultaneously [fence-sitting]() on the topic until Trump is out of office. "To be clear, we don't renounce onshore wind," Pouyanné added. "We continue to invest in onshore solar, onshore wind, batteries." The arrangement comes after the US about-faced and [rejected]() a key scientific finding that climate change harms the environment and human health. The so-called "endangerment finding" gave agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency legal license to take action to mitigate its effects, such as by curbing CO2 emissions. It also comes amid [upheaval in oil markets]() after the US launched a war with Iran, which [retaliated by shutting down the Strait of Hormuz](), an essential passageway for nearly a fifth of the world's oil supplies. For environmentalists, the deal is a kick in the tree nuts. Money that was going towards renewable energy is now being redirected towards fossil fuels. Generative AI, known for its outsized environmental impact, gets yet more power. New York governor Kathy Hochul blasted the deal in a statement. "Using a pay-not-to-play scheme to pressure a company to not build offshore wind is an outrageous abuse of taxpayer dollars," she said, per the *NYT*. Between exactly which couch cushions the administration will have to be rifling through to get the money for the deal is unclear. Energy lawyers told the *NYT* that it would probably come from the Justice Department’s Judgment Fund, which is typically for paying court judgments and settlements with the federal government. **More on energy:** [*Chinese Company Launches Wind-Powered Data Center at the Bottom of the Sea*]() ## Author At Futurism, my work has often centered on bringing a sense of clarity and insight to complex topics ranging from the regulation of emerging technologies to the esoteric ideologies of Silicon Valley executives, while striving not to lose the poetic sense of awe inspired by often-obscure fields like astrophysics and quantum computing. I broke the story of CNET using AI to produce articles that turned out to be riddled with factual errors and plagiarism — a dam-breaking inflection point, as I've reported, that's inspired copycats and endless discourse while beguiling stakeholders ranging from tech giants to purveyors of spam around the web. My work at Futurism has been cited by publications including CBS News, the Los Angeles Times, Vice, Gizmodo, Engadget, the Verge, and Vanity Fair. I grew up in locales ranging from India to China, and now live in the exotic suburbs of Virginia. In my free time, I'm an avid reader of weird sci-fi literature, an aficionado of East Asian cinema, and, regrettably, a relapsed gamer. Allegedly, I’m working on a debut novel, currently untitled. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()