President Donald Trump's administration said on April 27 that it had reached a deal to end two more U.S. offshore wind leases in exchange for $885 million in pledged investments in domestic fossil fuels.
The projects, one in the Atlantic and one in the Pacific, are managed by Ocean Winds, a joint venture between France's ENGIE (ENGIE.PA), opens new tab and Portugal's EDP Renewables (EDPR.LS), opens new tab.
The announcement comes a month after French energy giant TotalEnergies reached a similar agreement with the Interior Department to redirect $1 billion from offshore wind leases to U.S. oil and gas production. The deals represent a new strategy in Trump's effort to stymie U.S. offshore wind projects, which the president has called ugly, costly and inefficient.
Both projects are joint ventures. Ocean Winds partnered with a unit of asset manager BlackRock on Bluepoint Wind, which is off the coast of New York and New Jersey, and with Reventus Power, a London-based offshore wind investment firm, in the Golden State Wind project off California.
