President Donald Trump’s weird hatred of offshore wind energy is costing a lot as Uncle Sam has to pay off the companies which had invested in the canceled projects.

For the fifth time now, the Trump administration has agreed to pay an energy firm a huge sum of money, not for building something, but in fact for not building it. The German firm RWE announced that it would receive $1.22 billion to stop development of already-planned offshore wind farms, including one that was set to go up right here in New York.

That brings the total that Trump has committed specifically to kill wind energy to just about $4 billion. Let us repeat that — the U.S. government will pay a fortune just to not have new energy infrastructure.

Many of the administration’s decisions have been immoral, dangerous, authoritarian and corrupt, but few have been quite this stupid. All Trump had to do was stay out of the way and allow these already-planned wind projects to move forward, creating jobs and advancing the cause of American energy independence. That’s an especially attractive objective in light of the president’s war against Iran, which may end up the Strait of Hormuz being under some level of restrictions indefinitely.

Instead, we are now giving away public money to stop much-needed projects that could lessen our reliance on what happens in this water channel halfway across the globe.

Going all-in on dirty and outdated energy sources is lose-lose-lose.

One, it makes the U.S. reliant on volatile global energy markets and supply chains while inflating the power of corrupt Middle East regimes like Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

Two, it makes prices higher for people and businesses around the country, who must pay for the costly discovery, extraction, transport, refinement and so on instead of using the abundant wind and sunlight that exists right outside their doors.

Three, it helps accelerate the terror of climate change, whose terrible impact is becoming only more evident with each passing year and which will if unimpeded cause enormous damage not just to our economy but ability to live safely.

As with much in Trump’s calamitous second term, the damage will extend well beyond his time in office, and may be partly irreversible even if a new executive tries to turn course. The projects that have now been abandoned are unlikely to just get going again with a change of leadership; each represents significant investments and preparation that just went into the garbage, and energy firms are not going to keep making these investments when there’s always the specter of an administration coming in and tossing sand in the gears.

Hopefully, at least some of the wind projects can be saved now that a federal judge — one appointed by Trump, no less — has ruled that the Department of Defense’s refusal to even consider applications of wind energy projects is improper and it must continue with the evaluations.

We can understand why the Pentagon would potentially have to evaluate the location and type of turbines for potential interference with military systems, but this multi-month blockage, ostensibly to evaluate new threats, was obviously pretextual and unnecessary. If the department starts evaluations again but just denies them all, the plaintiffs should sue again. Let’s get those turbines up.

_____

©2026 New York Daily News. Visit at nydailynews.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.