Whitehouse puts further scrutiny on Interior offshore wind lease deal

The Trump administration announced a nearly $928 million agreement with TotalEnergies to cancel its offshore wind leases.

April 09, 2026

Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse sent a letter Thursday to French energy giant TotalEnergies raising legal concerns over its deal with the federal government on its offshore wind leases.

The Trump administration last month announced it reached a nearly $928 million agreement with TotalEnergies to cancel its offshore wind leases off the coasts of New York and North Carolina.

As part of the deal, TotalEnergies committed to invest the value of those leases into oil and natural gas production in the United States. The administration is reportedly in talks with other developers to enact similar deals over their leases.

Whitehouse wrote a letter Thursday to TotalEnergies Chair and CEO Patrick Pouyanné seeking answers over the source of the funding for the reimbursement. Other congressional Democrats have pressed the administration and Pouyanné in recent days with similar questions.

The Rhode Island Democrat called the timing of the "payoff" significant, given the Trump administration's court losses earlier this year over its stop-work orders on five offshore wind projects already under construction.

"After losing repeatedly in federal court, it appears that President Trump has turned to another method to kill offshore wind: pay companies like yours to walk away," he wrote Thursday.

Whitehouse wrote "several unanswered questions about this deal raise serious legal concerns, including for Total." He requested answers to questions surrounding negotiations with the Interior Department on the offshore wind leases, TotalEnergies' own “multi-energy integrated strategy” and requested a copy of the agreement with the administration.

A spokesperson for TotalEnergies did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Whitehouse, the top Democrat on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, paused congressional permitting reform negotiations late last year after the Interior Department tried to halt the five offshore wind projects.

Those talks have since restarted, but Whitehouse has said he is watching for “further mischief” from the administration that could stall them again. He called the TotalEnergies agreement "completely nonsensical" last month but stopped short of declaring negotiations off.

Democrats have fired off a flurry of letters on the Total deal, including from House Natural Resources ranking member Jared Huffman of California and House Judiciary ranking member Jamie Raskin of Maryland. They asked the company for documents and communications about the agreement, which they called “almost certainly unlawful."


By:  Kelsey Tamborrino
Source: E&E News By POLITICO