Additional legal challenges were filed this week against the Trump administration and offshore wind developers over deals in which the government agreed to pay those developers to give up their leases in U.S. waters and invest in other types of energy infrastructure instead.
Attorneys general from California, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Vermont accused the federal government of violating the Administrative Procedure Act, the separation of power doctrine and other federal laws in three legal complaints filed Sept. 22 in federal district courts in New York, Maine and California.
“Paying offshore wind developers billions of dollars to not build new planned sources of generation restricts the supply of electricity at a time of increasing demand and flouts the separation of powers established under the U.S. Constitution,” said the complaint filed by a coalition of Northeastern states in Maine.
The Trump administration has announced deals to buy back about a dozen leases so far for around $4 billion total, and negotiated with those companies to invest in other energy infrastructure instead, including oil and gas development.
The latest lawsuits focus on the administration’s dealings with Invenergy and Bluepoint Wind, a 50-50 partnership between Ocean Winds and Global Infrastructure Partners, for leases off the coasts of California, New York and Maine. Many of the same states listed as plaintiffs in the latest complaints have other lawsuits pending over similar deals with other developers.
The U.S. Interior Department, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and Invenergy did not respond to requests for comment. Bluepoint Wind could not immediately be reached for comment.
The suits ask the courts to vacate the settlement agreements and enjoin the defendants from implementing them. California’s complaint also seeks to enjoin the defendants from entering into similar settlement agreements.
In the lawsuit against Invenergy brought by the Northeastern states, the plaintiffs argue that the settlement agreements should not be paid out of the Judgment Fund, as they are “not the result of a compromise settlement between adverse parties, but rather an agreement resulting from Interior Defendants’ pretextual national security concerns and Invenergy’s desire to receive unauthorized compensation for three expensive offshore wind leases.”
The states’ lawsuit against Bluepoint contains nearly identical language.
California’s lawsuit makes similar arguments, calling the settlements “collusive” and saying “the negotiations between Invenergy and the federal government do not resemble the settlement of an actual or imminent claim against the United States.”
That lawsuit states that according to internal documents the California Energy Commission subpoenaed from Invenergy, the company “sought to discuss its ‘offshore leases and development portfolio’ in February 2026 and requested a draft of the ‘Framework Agreement’ that Interior had reached with ‘some other developers’ shortly thereafter.”
Invenergy’s cancelled Morro Bay lease area project had an anticipated capacity of up to 2 gigawatts. In the New York Bight lease area, Invenergy initially planned to develop a 2.4-GW project called Leading Light Wind, but the project was cancelled in November, with the company citing economic and regulatory conditions. The New York-led lawsuit alleges that the two Gulf of Maine leases together represented 3.8 GW in potential capacity.
