WASHINGTON \u2014 Democratic attorneys general from California and New York sued the Trump administration Tuesday over its plans to buy back offshore wind leases as President Trump seeks to discourage the expansion of wind energy in favor of fossil fuels.<\/p>\n
California Attorney General Rob Bonta said he is suing over removal of a project off his state\u2019s coast planned by Chicago-based Invenergy. The Trump administration said in June that it\u2019s buying back the company\u2019s US offshore wind leases for four wind projects on the East and West coasts.<\/p>\n
New York Attorney General Letitia James, meanwhile, led seven states in suits seeking to block the Invenergy deal and another proposal with Bluepoint Wind, which agreed in April to end a wind farm under development off the New York and New Jersey coast.<\/p>\n
The deals would hand energy companies $1.4 billion in taxpayer dollars in exchange for the cancellation of multiple projects. ln all, the Trump administration has pledged nearly $4 billion to companies to walk away from projects across the country.<\/p>\n
James called the deals illegal and said they will ultimately increase Americans\u2019 electricity bills by sabotaging states\u2019 ability to meet growing energy demands.<\/p>\n
\u201cAmericans are facing increasing energy costs because this administration would rather pay off energy companies than let us build the new power sources we need,\u201d James said in a statement. \u201cThese illegal backroom deals take money that should have gone toward lowering New Yorkers\u2019 bills and hand it to fossil fuel projects in other states.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bonta said that as a national and global leader in the fight against climate change, California finds itself enmeshed in \u201cavoidable and unnecessary battles with our own federal government\u201d to advance climate action and move toward clean energy.<\/p>\n
Trump, who often talks about his hatred of wind power, has said his goal is to not let any \u201cwindmills\u201d be built. Offshore wind produces electricity cleanly. Oil, coal, and natural gas emit carbon pollution when burned.<\/p>\n
Bonta, speaking at a Climate Week event in New York City, said climate action needs to match the scope, speed, and scale of the problem.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause we have to go to court and block an unlawful action by the Trump administration each time, it takes time. It slows the process down and we know we are running out of time and we need to be urgent and aggressive,\u201d Bonta said Tuesday in remarks just before Trump addressed the UN General Assembly.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re still all in, in California,\u201d Bonta said. \u201cNo matter what the Trump administration does, we\u2019re going to push to participate in the climate action that is needed to meet this moment and to rise to the occasion.\u201d<\/p>\n
Attorneys general in Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Vermont joined New York\u2019s suits.<\/p>\n
McDermott reported from New York<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON \u2014 Democratic attorneys general from California and New York sued the Trump administration Tuesday over its plans…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":353964,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[288,13718,10640,417,16715,9,11,10,87,421,420],"class_list":["post-353963","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-business","tag-climate-and-environment","tag-energy-industry","tag-general-news","tag-government-programs","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-politics","tag-u-s-news","tag-washington-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353963","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=353963"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353963\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/353964"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=353963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=353963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=353963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}