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This presidency invokes so many literary allusions of late. Last week, it was Narcissus at the green slime Reflecting Pool. This week, we're tilting at windmills again. Mind you, this has nothing to do with ugliness or national security concerns. It's just another payoff for the oil companies at the taxpayer's expense. "The Trump administration on Monday said it would pay Duke Energy $129 million to abandon its plans to build an offshore wind farm off North Carolina." "Mr. Burgum also repeated his earlier claims that offshore wind farms threaten national security. Last year, the Interior Department cited those concerns when ordering a halt to the construction of five other wind farms off the East Coast, saying their spinning turbines could interfere with military radar. But several federal judges struck down the stop-work orders, saying they were unpersuaded by the administration’s arguments." "After its losses in court, the administration pivoted to a new strategy: paying developers to walk away from offshore wind projects. It struck the first such deal in March with the French energy company TotalEnergies." "That deal saw the government pay TotalEnergies nearly $1 billion to abandon plans to build two wind farms, one off New York and the other in the same area off North Carolina. Seven Democratic-controlled states have sued the administration over that agreement, calling it an illegal use of taxpayer dollars." nytimes.com/2026/06/29/climate /trump-offshore-wind-duke-energy.html