‘We are going to court’: California threatens legal action on Trump offshore wind cuts

California is launching a probe into the Trump administration’s most recent move to scuttle the state’s nascent offshore wind industry. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration on Tuesday released an investigative subpoena against German energy company RWE, according to David Hochschild, chair of the California Energy Commission. “These are unlawful actions … they’re using funds that are not dedicated to those purposes, and we’re going to vigorously contest those,” Hochschild said of the Trump administration’s settlement agreements to kill offshore wind projects. “We’re going to court.” He made the announcement on stage during POLITICO’s The California Agenda: Sacramento Summit. Hochschild’s statements show that California, facing a relentless assault on its offshore wind ambitions, is turning to the courts as its primary venue for fighting back. RWE announced a $1.2 billion agreement on Thursday to surrender its offshore wind leases off the coasts of New York, California and Louisiana. That signaled the continued success of a recent Trump administration strategy to kill wind projects it opposes: offer the developers funds to instead invest in fossil fuel facilities. That tactic has so far ended three of the five planned wind projects off the California coast. In May, California issued a similar investigative subpoena to Golden State Wind after it cut a Trump administration deal to cancel an offshore wind project. The state later said it intended to sue over that deal. California followed that same playbook with Invenergy’s offshore wind cancellation. It has not filed any lawsuits in response to the deals to date.