The Trump administration announced it will pay nearly $1 billion to French energy giant TotalEnergies in exchange for the company abandoning plans to build offshore wind farms in the Atlantic Ocean and instead pursue fossil fuel projects in the US.
Instead, TotalEnergies will now spend the money on the development of a new liquified natural gas plant in Texas that will help export US LNG overseas to Europe, CEO Patrick Pouyanné said in a statement. The money will also go towards the company’s development of oil drilling operations in the Gulf of Mexico and shale oil projects elsewhere in the US.
If the headline made it sound bad, it’s worse:
As if it’s even worth pointing out the atom-thin silver lining: at least they called the Gulf of Mexico by its actual real name
Not only has the company been paid off, it seems ol’ Pat got himself a nice, tidy bag o’ cash on the side.