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NY Times phrases it as a reimbursement to TotalEnergies for relinquishing wind leases that they paid for. The US made the reimbursement contingent on them inve
by while_true_ 6mo ago
NY Times phrases it as a reimbursement to TotalEnergies for relinquishing wind leases that they paid for. The US made the reimbursement contingent on them investing in fossil fuel projects. "The deal is an extraordinary transfer of taxpayer dollars to a foreign company for the purposes of boosting the production of fossil fuels."
Total waste of $1 Bil of taxpayer dollars. If the oil and gas industry want to shut down wind projects let them pay for it.
- entropicdrifter 6mo agoWhy would they do that when they already paid for a corrupt new regime to do it for them?
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- eru 6mo agoSlight tangent: The US is a net oil exporter. If fossil fuel companies were so influential, wouldn't we expect them to be in favour of less fossil fuel production elsewhere? Instead the what seems to be influential is the average Joe who's complaining about the price at the pump.
- mh8h 6mo agoUS fossil fuel companies also make money from projects outside US. They explore, build the infrastructure, and operate oil fields for other countries.
- eru 6mo agoMaybe. But it's not obvious that they would benefit from cheap petrol.
- anonymous_user9 6mo agoIn that case, we should definitely reserve judgement on the weird payment stipulations then. The oil industry probably hates that the government is doing this, and we shouldn't cast aspersions on them.
- fastasucan 6mo agoNot maybe, they do. And noone wants their product so expensive that people starts looking for alternatives.
- justinclift 6mo agoAt a guess, they're probably happy to encourage continued reliance on petroleum, whilst the rest of the world is switching over to renewable energy.
- b112 6mo agoIndeed. All the blather about Canadian "trade surplus" is actually oil. US companies owning that infra sell that oil under market price, to their US corp divisions. The CEO, upper execs are usually American, and so their large salaries, and all corporate profits all flow to the US parent corp. Canada of course sees some taxes per barrel of oil, and local employment, but when you remove all this, Canada has a massive trade deficit with the US Of course for this US calls Canada trade unfair. It's all smoke and mirrors.
- samus 6mo ago> in favour of less fossil fuel production elsewhere? Another slight tangent: the street of Hormuz being closed has them covered nicely there currently.
- eru 6mo agoYes, that _would_ be evidence in favour of oil interests having influence in the government. But that's also an unusual situation; and the US administration is also lifting sanctions on Russian oil at the same time.
- BoiledCabbage 6mo agoSo TotalEnergies agreed to invest 1 billion is offshore wind during thr last Administration. The current Administration doesn't want any investment in renewables so they attempted to block it. A judge said the attempted block was unlawful. So then immediately the admin said something new and that instead there were "national security concerns" with building wind plants - (Which doesn't pass the smell test to me at all) and the project would be held up while untangling those. My assumption is the company started getting upset at being toyed around and having their 1 billion investment completely stalled for so long. So the admin said we'll kill the wind if you do our fossil fuels instead. So shift your investment away from wind (we kill it and pay you back for what you investws) if you instead do fossil fuels. And that's what's being done. So previously the company was spending 1billion on wind and getting some subsidies. Now they spend 2 billion, and get paid 1 billion from the tax payer. For them it's at best a wash, though likely a loss since I haven't heard they get subsidies with the fossil fules. And the tax payer instead of paying for tax credits or low interest loans or other subsidies that were part of wind power portion of the Inflation Reduction Act instead pay a full 1 billion dollars to the company. > The Trump administration will pay $1 billion to a French company to walk away from two U.S. offshore wind leases as the administration ramps up its campaign against offshore wind and other renewable energy. 1. https://apnews.com/article/trump-offshore-wind-energy-climate-totalenergies-interior-092eeeacc5d09730d4e20a95d7df7de1 https://apnews.com/article/trump-offshore-wind-energy-climat...
- carlosjobim 6mo ago[flagged]
- jondea 6mo agoCould you give some sources for this? I can't seem to find anything with a cursory search, but I'd be interested in reading.
- TazeTSchnitzel 6mo agohttps://www.regeringen.se/pressmeddelanden/2024/11/avslag-pa-13-havsbaserade-vindkraftparker-i-ostersjon/ https://www.regeringen.se/pressmeddelanden/2024/11/avslag-pa... The Swedish government is not blocking all offshore wind, but it is blocking a lot of it, specifically wind parks in areas of the Baltic Sea that could cause trouble for trying to detect Russian military activities. I don't know what the situation looks like for Finland.
- Braxton1980 6mo agoThe majority of tax payers voted for this to happen
- sgerenser 6mo agoPlurality, not majority. (Not that I’m excusing the dumb dumbs who decided not voting was a viable course of action when they decided that “both sides” were running bad candidates).
- tomjakubowski 6mo agoWith Trump getting a little bit less than half the vote and a 65% turnout, "did not vote" was the plurality.
- JumpCrisscross 6mo agoWhich is functionally a vote for the status quo. Someone who can't bother to vote isn't going to bother e.g. protesting or otherwise affirming their rights.
- datsci_est_2015 6mo agoOr defeatism. Discouragement campaigns go a long way: “both sides are bad so don’t vote!”
- hedora 6mo agoSo, in this case, "plurality" means "third place".
- Braxton1980 6mo agoNot voting is a choice and the same as voting for the winner
- justinclift 6mo ago> Not that I’m excusing the dumb dumbs who decided not voting was a viable course of action when they decided that “both sides” were running bad candidates Sounds like both candidates were terrible enough that quite a few didn't bother?
- ericfr11 6mo agoGOP capitalism at its worst: take public money and give it to private interests, without any thoughts of what makes sense.
- hedora 6mo ago"Trump asked oil and gas executives in 2024 to raise $1 billion for his campaign and told them he’d grant their policy wish list if he won. The investment, he said, would be a “deal” given the taxes and regulation they would avoid under his presidency. He also offered to help fast-track fossil fuel industry mergers and acquisitions if he won." https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/fossil-fuel-industry-donors-see-major-returns-trumps-policies https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/foss...
- dchinu 6mo agoCough Cough Big Bank bailout..... this is corpocracy with two branding every few year interval.
- dashundchen 6mo agoYou should probably look up when the TARP bailiut program was passed and initiated, because it wasn't when Obama was president. The Great Financial Crisis brewed and exploded under Bush. Obama pushed for the 2010 Dodd Frank reforms to rein in big banks after that. Corporate bailouts, huge deficit spending, mega tax cuts for the mega rich, and bottomless pit defense spending have been Republican policy for the last 50 years.
- pfannkuchen 6mo agoLeft (foot), right (foot).
- kelnos 6mo ago... while all the time blaming Democrats for everything they do themselves, at a much larger scale. Hypocrisy works, if you have an electorate that can't think critically and are addicted to "news" sources that confirm their biases.
- vasco 6mo agoThe companies don't give a rats ass what kind of energy project it is as long as it is profitable. Wind energy, gas, cow farts, it's all the same to them. Your framing makes no sense.