According to Ranking Member Huffman of the House Natural Resources Committee and House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Raskin, the Trump Administration drew the almost $1 billion payment to TotalEnergies from the Judgement Fund, an account created by Congress in 1956 to pay…. According to the Department of the Treasury, it has no record of authorization from any other federal agency, including the Department of the Interior that it can not make any amount of the payments nor from the Attorney General or a designee….

In December of last year, the Trump Administration suspended five large-scale offshore wind projects, including one project that was already generating electricity, "due to national security risks" detailed in still-classified reports the Interior Department shared in a press release. KEYT reported that attorney General Alleges Trump Administration’s Deal To Kill Local Offshore Wind Project Unconstitutional and Illegal. Opened Friday's lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

An equal amount in the development of U.S. oil and gas assets, energy infrastructure, and/or LNG [liquid natural gas] projects along the Gulf Coast. Bluepoint Wind and Golden State Wind have each separately agreed to voluntarily end their offshore wind leases, with the respective affiliate companies agreeing to make financial investments in reliable conventional energy projects,.

Estimates indicated that the reimbursement amount roughly matches the down payment made by Golden State Wind to secure the lease initially in 2022, but federal law already prescribes a process for paying companies back when their offshore wind leases are terminated. Under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, when the federal government cancels an offshore energy lease, the lessee is "entitled to receive the lesser of two amounts: the fair value of the cancelled rights as of the date of cancellation, or the….

Prior offshore wind deals, including an almost $1 billion deal with French energy giant TotalEnergies, to terminate its offshore wind projects are subject to Congressional investigation for the same reasons noted in Friday's filing. Those claims are now subject to Freedom of Information Act requests filed by Your News Channel author including one that has already exceeded the statutory limits for a response. Both of those authorizations are required by federal law to make Judgment Fund-based payments detailed in the agreement with TotalEnergies.

Reports differed on some details. Reports differed on some details.

[T]hese investments advance President Donald J. Trump's Energy Dominance Agenda to leverage the nation's natural resources to benefit American citizens and help lower everyday energy costs.

Entitled to receive the lesser of two amounts: the fair value of the cancelled rights as of the date of cancellation, or the excess of the lessee's total expenditures on the lease over revenues received.

The buyout and cancellation of Lease OCS-P 0564 is unlawful and must be set aside pursuant to the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), 5 U.S.C. § 706(2), because it is arbitrary and capricious, illegal, and in excess of statutory jurisdiction,.

Under that formula [in the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act], TotalEnergies was entitled to whatever the current fair value of OCS-A 0545 and OCS-A 0538 actually was on March 23, 2026, not a full refund of the purchase price,.

The administration did not use the statutory formula, as incorporated into the leases. It paid nearly $1 billion, a figure bearing no relationship to what Congress wrote into law, and almost certainly a significant overpayment even under the most favorable reading of the….

Not taxpayer dollars. Approved by the Department of Justice. No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law.

Independent of the lease cancellation's illegality, the Settlement Agreement presents multiple abuses of federal appropriations process,. We did not take this decision lightly,.

But when the underlying conditions in a market change, we must adapt. In this case, receiving a refund for the lease payments we had invested and exiting on agreed terms was the right outcome for our shareholders and partners.

The Executive Branch has no authority to give offshore wind leaseholders a 'dollar-for-dollar reimbursement' of their lease fees: once deposited into the U.S. Treasury, the lease fees became part of a general pool of monies expendable only by Congress's appropriation,.

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