Tracking Trump’s Wasteful Offshore Wind Buyouts
The Trump administration has waged a relentless and costly battle against offshore wind. Having had its previous attempts to shut down projects with stop work orders and remitting permits shot down in court, the administration has switched to a new tactic: paying developers to abandon their projects.
The U.S. Department of Interior (DOI) has paid off energy companies to walk away from offshore wind commitments saying that the new agreements would “resolve the unaddressed national security concerns at both projects.” The claim lacks credibility as the projects were approved in coordination with the U.S. Department of Defense.
Below is a running tally of the impacts of those buyouts.
(Current as of: October 30, 2026)
Impacts of Trump Administration OSW Buyouts
$3.9 Billion The amount of taxpayer money the administration has spent on these buyouts
21.15 GW The amount of energy that would have been produced by the abandoned projects
85,679 Jobs The number jobs impacted projects were projected to have created*
*Job Creation Lost
In securing their leases, some—but not all—of the developers had announced how many jobs they expected the development of those lease areas to create. Additionally, job creation estimates have been included in a number of publicly available documents on the leases. The current total of lost job creation based on those announcements and publicly available documents is 85,679.
This includes:
- 15,750 from the Attentive Energy Two Offshore Wind Energy Project
- 11,329 from the Invenergy Leading Light Wind Project
- 8,000 from the Golden State Wind
- 18,000 between Invenergy’s two Gulf of Maine projects
- 4,600 from RWE’s Community Offshore Wind Project in New York
- 28,000 from TotalEnergies’ and Duke Energy’s Carolina Long Bay Projects
A Canceled 1GW OSW Project Takes With It**:
$2.85 Billion in domestic supply chain investment
$600 Million in lost domestic steel demand
$1.7 billion in ratepayer savings over 20 years
**Data shared with permission from the Oceantic Network. For more analysis from Oceantic, click here.
Lease Details
Project |
Leaseholder |
Location |
Buy Out Date |
Payment |
Capacity (MW) |
Jobs |
| Attentive Energy Two | Attentive Energy | New York/New Jersey | 3/23/2026 | $795,000,000 | 1,545 | 15,750 |
| TotalEnergies Carolina Long Bay | TotalEnergies | North Carolina/South Carolina | 3/23/2026 | $133,333,333 | 1,000 | 28,000 (Total for both Carolina Long Bay leases) |
| Bluepoint Wind | BluePoint Wind | New York/New Jersey | 4/27/2026 | $765,000,000 | 2,400 | Unknown |
| Golden State Wind | Golden State Wind | California | 4/27/2026 | $120,240,000 | 2,000 | 8,000 |
| Leading Light Wind | Invenergy | New York/New Jersey | 6/12/2026 | $645,000,000 | 2,400 | 11,329 |
| Gulf of Maine lease OCS-A 0562 | Invenergy | Maine | 6/12/2026 | $3,669,525 | NA | 18,000 |
| Gulf of Maine lease OCS-A 0567 | Invenergy | Maine | 6/12/2026 | $4,416,750 | 1,800 | Unknown |
| Even Keel Wind | Invenergy | California | 6/12/2026 | $111,769,231 | 2,000 | Unknown |
| Duke / Cinergy Carolina Long Bay | Duke Energy | North Carolina/South Carolina | 6/29/2026 | $129,000,000 | 1,600 | Noted above |
| Community Offshore Wind | RWE/National Grid | New York/New Jersey | 8/6/2026 | $1,220,000,000 | 2,800 | 4600 |
| Canopy Offshore Wind | RWE | California | 8/6/2026 | 1,600 | Unknown | |
| Lease Area OCS-G 37334 | RWE | Gulf of Mexico | 8/6/2026 | 2,000 | Unknown | |
TOTALS: |
$3.927 Billion |
21.15 GW |
85,679 Jobs |