March 23 (UPI) -- The Trump administration closed a deal with the French energy company TotalEnergies to pay it nearly $1 billion to end construction of wind farms off the shores of New York and North Carolina.
TotalEnergies will be paid $928 million after it invests the same amount of money in oil, natural gas and liquefied natural gas production in the United States, the Department of the Interior announced on Monday.
The company also pledged not to develop any new offshore wind projects in the United States "in light of national security concerns," the DOI said.
"Offshore wind is one of the most expensive, unreliable, environmentally disruptive and subsidy-dependent schemes ever forced on American ratepayers and taxpayers," Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said in a press release.
"We welcome TotalEnergies' commitment to developing projects that produce dependable, affordable power to lower Americans' monthly bills while providing secure U.S. base load power today -- and in the future," he said.
