Paying Billions to Produce Less

Help us expose the taxpayer cost of offshore wind buyouts.

Paying companies billions not to produce energy is a strange way to spend taxpayer money. But that’s what the administration is doing with offshore wind. Since March, it has canceled 12 federal leases through buyouts costing taxpayers $3.9 billion.

At Taxpayers for Common Sense, we examined the agreements behind those buyouts. Companies paid to secure these leases at competitive auctions, and that money has already been deposited into the U.S. Treasury. Now the government is returning those payments while giving up the future revenue projects could have generated for taxpayers.

The details deserve attention. The agreements require companies to make equivalent investments in ”conventional” energy projects, mostly oil and gas, and some even allow investments made before the agreements were signed. Taxpayers are paying to cancel offshore wind projects and getting a bad deal in return.

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With electricity demand growing, paying companies billions to abandon domestic energy projects makes no sense. Taxpayers foot the bill to cancel future supply, while consumers are left needing more power with no real promise that more supply will be added.

Our report and tracker put these deals in one place so the public can see what the government has agreed to pay and what taxpayers and all Americans stand to lose. We’re explaining the costs to reporters and policymakers and continuing to scrutinize the administration’s decisions. As demand for electricity grows, paying to eliminate potential supply deserves more scrutiny, not less.

For TCS, the question is what taxpayers get for their money. An administration’s preference for one energy source over another does not excuse a bad deal. Your support helps us examine the agreements and make their consequences clear.

Please help us keep following the money.

Thank you,

Steve Ellis
President
Taxpayers for Common Sense