French company TotalEnergies has halted development of its planned offshore wind farm off the coast of New York following the victory of president-elect Donald Trump, who has vowed to kill such projects on day one of his second term.
“In offshore wind, I decided to put the project on pause, because all the offshore wind projects are in Democratic states . . . we’ll see better in four years,” TotalEnergies CEO Patrick Pouyanne said at an energy industry conference in London on Tuesday, according to Bloomberg News. “The advantage is that it’s only for four years.”
The chief executive indicates that the energy firm could potentially revive the project once Trump leaves office in 2029 and a president friendlier to the offshore wind industry takes his place.
In May, Trump pledged to sign an executive order on the first day of his presidency to target offshore wind.
“They destroy everything, they’re horrible, the most expensive energy there is,” Trump said during a campaign appearance in Wildwood, N.J. “They ruin the environment, they kill the birds, they kill the whales.”
Fishermen and whale advocates have protested the nascent industry and are hopeful that Trump will scale back offshore wind farms, like he promised.
“The incoming administration has a historic opportunity to save American workers from foreign developers, reinvigorate iconic coastal towns, and improve America’s food security,” Jerry Leeman, founder and CEO of the New England Fishermen’s Stewardship Association, said following Trump’s election win.
The Biden administration meanwhile has taken the opposite approach in the past four years, accelerating the approval and construction of offshore wind farms down the east and west coasts. President Joe Biden created incentives to bolster the renewable energy industry through the Inflation Reduction Act, which Democrats passed in 2022.
In September, the White House celebrated its approval of a large offshore wind farm off the coast of Maryland — the tenth project of its kind to be greenlit under the Democratic administration. The 2,200-megawatt project marked the halfway point in the Biden administration’s goal to reach 30 gigawatts of energy generated by offshore wind in the U.S. by 2030.
The Attentive Energy project, planned to be located south of New York Harbor and east of New Jersey, is expected to power between 1 and 3 million homes with 3,000 megawatts of generated electricity once fully constructed. The project remains in early development, and given the company’s four-year pause, it won’t be finished until the 2030s at the earliest.
TotalEnergies won the leasing area in a 2022 auction held by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. BOEM operates under the Department of the Interior.
Trump recently selected North Dakota governor Doug Burgum as his Interior secretary nominee. The pick suggests that the incoming administration will end offshore wind leases, while simultaneously prioritizing oil and gas production. Trump is expected to fulfill his campaign promise to “drill, baby, drill” — although ExxonMobil has expressed doubt.
“I don’t think we’re going to see anybody in the drill, baby, drill mode. I really don’t,” ExxonMobil’s Liam Mallon said on Tuesday at the same London conference that the TotalEnergies CEO attended.
Despite the former president’s hostility toward offshore wind, developers are pledging to work with Trump and the GOP-controlled Congress to keep their projects afloat.
“With President Trump in office, we have the opportunity to harness even more investment and measurable economic benefits for communities across the country. The U.S. offshore wind industry stands ready to welcome new investments in American factories and shipyards,” Oceantic Network president and CEO Liz Burdock said in a statement the day after the presidential election.
“Oceantic looks forward to working with the Trump-Vance administration and the new Congress to advance our nation’s economy, combat rising costs, and deliver more domestic energy.”