U.S. COAST — The Trump administration has paid nearly $2 billion to energy companies to abandon offshore wind farm projects off the U.S. coast between March and last week.

In March, the administration announced a nearly $1 billion payout to TotalEnergies to abandon an offshore wind project. TotalEnergies bought a lease in 2022 for an offshore wind project off the coast of North Carolina for more than $133 million, and a separate lease in 2022 for an offshore wind project off the coast of New York for $795 million.

The administration subsequently made more than $900 million in additional payouts to energy companies to abandon two offshore wind farm projects. Those projects included Bluepoint Wind, an offshore wind farm project off the coast of New York and New Jersey, and Golden State Wind, an offshore wind farm project off the coast of California.

Several large-scale wind energy projects on the East and West Coast of the U.S. have been canceled in the last few months. The administration initially tried to block some of the offshore wind projects from going forward, citing national security concerns. Several courts rejected those attempts.

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said the offshore wind projects were only viable when propped up by taxpayer subsidies under the Biden administration. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management lacks statutory or regulatory authority to refund monies to companies after they paid for offshore wind leases, according to former Director Elizabeth Klein.

"Many of us believe they have gone outside of what is lawful, certainly outside of any appropriate process. They have crafted these agreements, which really the best way to describe them are backdoor deals that lack transparency. They lack an appropriate process that you would normally follow," Klein said.