Dept. of Interior bribes oil company $1B from taxpayer coffers to stop wind power

The Department of the Interior, headed by a man who has received hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes from oil companies, just declared it will spend $1 billion of your dollars to convince a French oil company, TotalEnergies, to stop development of affordable, reliable offshore wind and instead shift to expensive, unreliable liquified methane gas.

TotalEnergies is the third-largest oil company in the world, but it also operates some solar and wind projects in various parts of the world (including solar in Texas, and a wind farm in the North Sea, pictured above).

It had owned two offshore wind leases in Carolina Long Bay and New York Bight, both awarded in 2022. It was going to develop these sites into offshore wind locations to help develop reliable, cheap power for the US.

Offshore wind is one of the cheapest forms of electricity, and also one of the lowest-impact environmentally. It doesn’t use up any land space, and doesn’t create any pollution. It’s also incredibly reliable, because wind on the ocean tends to blow consistently – especially in the areas chosen for offshore wind leases.

Given that we are currently in both a climate and affordability crisis, offshore wind development could come on at a critical time for this country. Revolution Wind, which recently came online in New England, stands to lower electricity costs for New Englanders by half a billion dollars a year.

And, given we’re also in the middle of multiple overseas adventures disrupting the supply of oil globally, having access to secure domestic energy could be a huge boon for America.

So of course, the enemies of America currently occupying the White House don’t want that, and have entered an agreement to try to stop it from happening.

Recipient of oil bribes hands out his own bribe

The republican squatting in the Department of the Interior, Doug Burgum, former governor of North Dakota and recipient of hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes from the oil industry, announced today that the Department will take $928,333,333 of your taxpayer dollars and give them to TotalEnergies in exchange for the renouncement of its two leases.

This represents a return on investment of several hundred thousand percent for the industry’s bribes – and it’s just one of the anti-American actions Burgum has taken. Previously, he cut off electricity for 400k homes just before Christmas, raising electricity prices.

As a condition of this nearly-billion dollar bribe to a foreign oil company, the oil company has agreed not to develop wind power in the US. It will also invest $1 billion in oil and methane projects, ensuring more dirty and expensive energy for the US.

Both the Dept. of the Interior and TotalEnergies made Orwellian statements claiming that the decision had something to do with affordability and national security, despite that wasting $1billion of your money on bribes to a foreign company to develop less secure, more expensive energy does nothing to benefit the country in either of those ways.

Nor will it benefit your health or the fight against climate change, which ravaged the West Coast with a heat wave over the last week, with temperatures up to 30ºF higher than average for this time of year, that would be “virtually impossible” without human-caused climate change.

White House keeps fighting to starve you of cheap, clean energy

This is just the latest attack against clean, affordable energy by the current occupants of the White House.

Energy bills are rapidly rising, and they’re rising due to republican policy. The war in Iran has caused gas prices to spike globally, and attacks on solar and wind power have starved America of energy when it needs it the most.

This meant that in 2025, while other countries like China and India were getting a cleaner, more capable grid, America was getting a dirtier and more expensive one, with an uptick in coal usage (the DoE, also, keeps demanding broken coal plants stay open, even when they aren’t being used).

That coal surge went to power AI data centers, which are sucking down enormous amounts of electricity and increasing prices for everyone, as republicans work to reduce the availability of energy that could help fuel that AI boom.

Electric cars, too, could work to reduce spiking energy prices. EVs are ~5x as energy efficient as fossil-powered vehicles, so with the law of supply and demand, reducing energy demand means that the cost of supply will go down.

EVs have already offset oil usage equivalent to 70% of Iran’s exports, and are fueled by electricity generated domestically, rather than relying overseas oil, which increases energy security.

EVs could have offset even more oil usage, without republican attacks on electric vehicles.

Many of the White House’s attacks against clean energy have been impotent – like its attempts to illegally shut down wind development which have been repeatedly stopped in court. Now, after its illegal attacks found no ground, it’s resorting to spending your money to directly bribe oil companies not to give you cheap energy, and instead to focus on one of the dirtiest forms.

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