Trump administration to pay German firm $1.2bn to halt US wind projects (August 7, 2026 )
Rorey Bosotti reports for the BBC that the German energy company RWE will abandon its offshore wind projects in the United States after reaching a $1.2 billion payout agreement with the Department of the Interior. The company is relinquishing its leases off the California and Louisiana coasts and in the New York Bight, and will redirect the money into conventional gas — including $900 million toward a liquefied natural gas export terminal project in Louisiana. RWE's statement said that after careful consideration it had concluded there was no path to permitting the projects in the United States for the foreseeable future. The firm plans to invest roughly €17 billion (about $19.6 billion) in the U.S. over the next six years to expand its generation capacity. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, announcing the deal on X, said Americans deserve an energy system built on common sense rather than one dependent on costly subsidies, and welcomed what he characterized as RWE's voluntary investment in projects strengthening national energy security.
The agreement is one of several the administration has concluded this year in its campaign against offshore wind. In March 2026, Interior reached a deal with TotalEnergies ending the French company's U.S. offshore wind work, with investment rerouted to an LNG plant in Texas and to upstream conventional oil development in the Gulf of Mexico. Last month a similar but far smaller arrangement — $129 million — was signed with Charlotte-based Duke Energy in exchange for terminating its offshore wind lease in the Carolina Long Bay area. The pattern follows a president who campaigned on expanded drilling and who has disparaged wind power for years, describing turbines as ugly and hazardous to wildlife, declaring shortly after returning to office that his administration would not pursue wind, and saying this week that "any country with windmills is a loser."
N.B. — The original article gives each figure in U.S. dollars followed by a pounds sterling equivalent. The sterling figures have been dropped here and amounts are shown in dollars; RWE's six-year investment total is given in euros, as in the original, with the dollar equivalent retained.
| https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1e1vg0gjl5o |