Trump Administration to Buyback Four More Offshore Wind Leases
Continuing its strategy of canceling offshore wind projects by buying back the leases in exchange for other energy investments, the Department of the Interior announced its third agreement. The administration has committed nearly $2.6 billion to canceling offshore wind leases even as the strategy is being challenged in court and by regulators.
Invenergy will voluntarily terminate four offshore wind leases it purchased in the past from the government and will redirect the investments toward other domestic energy sources, said the Department of the Interior. It valued the four leases at $765 million for one lease in the New York Bight for a New Jersey wind farm, two for floating offshore wind farms in Maine, and one off the coast of California.
The largest and most advanced of the projects was Leading Light Wind, which had submitted its offshore wind project bid to the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (BPU) in August 2023. It called for up to 2.4 GW, which would have made it the largest in the United States. It would have been more than 40 miles off the coast near Atlantic City, New Jersey, and included a battery storage option that would provide 253 MW of advanced energy storage, but it had yet to submit a Construction and Operations Plan proposal to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.
The project was selected by New Jersey in January 2024. Citing problems with the supply chain and the changing economics, the company notified New Jersey in November 2025 that it was not moving forward with Leading Light Wind. The other leases in Maine and California were in early development stages, not having presented firm plans.
“The offshore wind leases were sold under the assumptions that taxpayers would indefinitely subsidize costly, unreliable projects and that no national security concerns were implicated - both assumptions have since been proven false,” asserted Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum.
The Department of the Interior said the agreement provides for partial reimbursement. The company agrees to redirect that amount towards other domestic energy sources with the demonstrated capability to deliver reliable, affordable power, including the development of natural gas-fired power plants in Indiana, Wisconsin, Iowa, Kansas, and Missouri, and geothermal power generation projects in the Western U.S.
Critics, however, were quick to point out that the so-called swaps are not even exchanges, as they take power away from the coastal sites and redirect it to other areas of the country.
“Replacing coastal offshore wind with geothermal or natural gas infrastructure in another region does nothing to address rising ratepayer affordability concerns, reliability challenges, or potential gaps in power supply in the Northeast and mid-Atlantic,” said Hillary Bright, executive director of offshore wind advocacy group Turn Forward, in a statement to the Associated Press.
A coalition of states recently filed a court challenge to the first deal, which was struck with TotalEnergies to buy back nearly $1 billion invested in a lease in the New York Bight and a smaller one off North Carolina. The California Energy Commission has also subpoenaed information from Golden State Wind, a project planned by Ocean Winds, which is a partnership between Engie and EDP Renewables.
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Critics are also questioning if the government has the legal right under the contracts to buy them back, and where the funds will come from. Members of Congress have also called for investigations of these transactions.
Earlier this week, the Trump administration withdrew an appeal in the courts over a judgment that blocks its suspension of the review of all wind energy leases. The order was imposed in January 2025 to review the leasing process, but the court found that it could not be an indefinite suspension. The administration has also been blocked by the courts in its efforts to place stop-work orders on the under-construction offshore wind farms. However, future development has been stopped by the administrations’ strong opposition to offshore wind energy.