Nine states have sued the Trump administration over deals that would use more than $1.5 billion in federal funds to reimburse energy companies for giving up offshore wind projects and investing comparable amounts in natural gas and geothermal development.
The three lawsuits, filed Sept. 22, target Interior Department agreements with Bluepoint Wind and Invenergy covering five federal offshore wind leases. New York is leading eight East Coast states in two cases involving $1.4 billion, while California filed separately over more than $111 million tied to an Invenergy lease off its Central Coast.
The states want the agreements blocked. The East Coast coalition is also asking federal judges to void the lease cancellations and prevent the administration from carrying out the deals.
At the center of the dispute is the Judgment Fund, a permanent federal account used to pay certain judgments and settlements against the United States. The states say the fund is reserved for actual or imminent legal claims and that the offshore wind agreements fall outside those limits because the companies had not brought lawsuits over the leases.
The complaints also accuse Interior of bypassing federal rules governing offshore lease cancellations. Federal law sets conditions and procedures for ending leases on the Outer Continental Shelf, while the states say the administration instead used settlement agreements to cancel them and reimburse the developers.
The lawsuits allege violations of the Judgment Fund Act, the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act and the Administrative Procedure Act, among other federal laws.
The Bluepoint lease was purchased for $765 million in 2022 and covers an area in the New York Bight, the stretch of federal waters between Long Island and New Jersey. Under an agreement Interior announced in April, an affiliate would invest up to the same amount in a U.S. liquefied natural gas facility. The government would reimburse the company as qualifying investments are made and cancel the wind lease.
Bluepoint also agreed to end its pursuit of new offshore wind development in the United States.
Interior announced its agreement with Invenergy in June. The company agreed to relinquish four offshore wind leases with a combined value of $765 million and redirect an equivalent amount toward natural gas plants in Indiana, Wisconsin, Iowa, Kansas and Missouri and geothermal projects in the western United States.
Three of the Invenergy leases, worth about $653 million, are covered by the East Coast states’ lawsuit. Along with the Bluepoint project, the canceled developments could have generated more than eight gigawatts of electricity, enough to power more than four million homes, according to the states.
California’s case focuses on the fourth Invenergy lease, located in the Morro Bay Wind Energy Area off the state’s Central Coast. The lease is tied to more than $111 million in federal reimbursement under the agreement.
California officials say the state has already invested more than $100 million in ports, transmission systems and other infrastructure intended to support offshore wind development. The state argues that the settlement also bypassed its role in the federal offshore leasing process.
New York Attorney General Letitia James is joined in the East Coast cases by the attorneys general of Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Vermont.
Interior calls the agreements voluntary settlements and says they redirect investment toward energy projects capable of providing reliable and affordable power. Announcing the Invenergy deal in June, the department said the company would shift investment toward natural gas and geothermal generation.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum also said the wind leases had depended on substantial taxpayer support and raised national security concerns. The administration made similar arguments when it announced the Bluepoint agreement in April, saying the project was impractical to develop without subsidies and that the deal would move investment toward conventional energy production.
The Sept. 22 cases follow earlier litigation over other Trump administration agreements to cancel offshore wind leases. A coalition of states sued in June over a deal with TotalEnergies, while California has separately challenged the cancellation of a Golden State Wind lease off its coast.
Interior has also reached agreements involving Duke Energy and RWE. The RWE settlement announced in August covers three leases and $1.22 billion, bringing the total value of the administration’s offshore wind lease buyouts to nearly $4 billion.
The latest cases are pending in federal courts in New York, Maine, and California.
