Sometimes you pay for something not to happen — this is now the fifth time the Trump administration has used that exact logic on offshore wind. This time the target is German energy company RWE, in a deal worth over $1.2 billion, all sourced from taxpayer funds handled by the Department of the Interior. The result: offshore wind leases in New York, California, and Louisiana are all cancelled.
Where the money actually flows is the more interesting part. RWE agreed to put up $900 million to buy a 16% stake in a Louisiana LNG project led by Australia's Woodside Energy. Another $300 million will go toward building pipeline infrastructure for 15 natural gas peaker plants across the country. Woodside Energy isn't exactly an unfamiliar name here — the company has publicly stated that "the Trump administration supports our industry," and its COO Daniel Kalms has recently taken to calling the Gulf of Mexico the "Gulf of America," a phrase typically reserved for one particular audience.
Rewinding the timeline: RWE originally paid about $1.1 billion for the New York lease (during the Biden administration), plus roughly $163 million for the California and Louisiana leases. Adjusted for inflation, this $122 million "settlement fund" (RWE's own wording) leaves the company essentially breaking even — if not coming out ahead by cashing out and pivoting elsewhere. RWE's official statement frames the settlement as allowing the company to "direct resources toward energy projects that can be reliably advanced." Interior Secretary Doug Burgum praised it as a "voluntary investment that strengthens national energy security."
Rep. Mike Levin did the math on social media: the Trump administration has now spent $4 billion total specifically to cancel offshore wind projects that could have lowered Americans' electricity bills. In other words, the government is paying money to keep more power off the grid while bills stay high — and this deal marks the fifth "pay-to-cancel" agreement of its kind.
Where the Hostility to Wind Turbines Began: A Lost Lawsuit in Scotland
Trump's antagonism toward wind turbines is nothing new. For years he's insisted on calling them "windmills," claimed they cause cancer, drive whales "loco" and cause them to die "in numbers never seen before," and once said, "if the wind doesn't blow, you're not going to watch television tonight" — a line that misunderstands how energy storage actually works. Reports trace this hostility back to a lawsuit in Scotland, where an offshore wind farm was built near one of his golf courses — and he lost.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration has also poured about $1.1 billion into coal energy projects, drawing criticism for "rewarding political allies." As for the LNG industry RWE is now pivoting toward, its track record isn't exactly clean either: a report released late last year by the Environmental Integrity Project found that every single fully operational LNG facility in the U.S. has violated federal pollution limits at some point, including discharging excess hazardous substances into waterways.
The exact signing date and implementation timeline for the RWE settlement were not disclosed in available materials.
