Trump Keeps Spending US Tax Dollars to Kill Offshore Wind and Boost Oil and Gas ⁠72%

By Maya Yang⁠77%

8/7/2026, 4:30:00 AM

BS Summary: This article contains 20 faulty reasoning types, including Confirmation Bias, Framing Effect, and Optimism Bias, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 21.4% saturation with 131 hits. Analysis detected 1,062 faulty-reasoning hits from 613 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 55.5% and a BS Rank of ⁠72% (8,850 of 30,584 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 71.10% of the article peer group.

This story was originally published b y the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. 
The German energy company RWE has reached a $1.22 billion deal with the US government to relinquish its offshore wind leases and instead redirect funds towards fossil fuel investments. 
The agreement marks the fifth deal the Donald Trump administration has struck with energy companies , offering payouts in exchange for abandoning renewable energy projects and redirecting investment towards fossil fuels. 
This latest deal takes it to almost $4 billion of taxpayer money spent on killing offshore wind projects. 
Announcing the deal with the US Interior Department on Thursday, RWE said it had agreed to give up its offshore wind leases off the coasts of New York, California, and Louisiana. 
“After careful consideration, it was determined there is no path forward to permit these projects in the US for the foreseeable future,” the company said, referring to the leases it initially secured with a “long-term commitment to develop offshore wind capacity.” 
The administration has also spent up to $1.1 billion to boost coal, which critics say is “fattening the wallets of his cronies.” 
RWE paid $1.1 billion for its New York lease in a 2022 auction held by the Biden administration, while its leases in Louisiana and California cost a combined $163 million, Reuters reports. 
“The settlement resolves RWE US Offshore’s legal claims and provides $1.22 billion in settlement funds,” RWE continued, adding that the deal would allow it to “direct resources toward energy projects that can be advanced with certainty.” 
As part of the agreement, RWE will spend $900 million to acquire a 16 percent stake in an unnamed Louisiana liquified natural gas (LNG) project. 
The company said the settlement proceeds would be used to fund construction of the terminal. 
RWE has also signed a $300 million turbine reservation agreement under which it will develop a pipeline of 15 natural gas peaker plants across the country. 
The interior secretary, Doug Burgum, hailed the deal, saying on Thursday: “We welcome RWE’s agreement and voluntary investment in projects that strengthen our nation’s energy security, provide dependable baseload power, and help keep electricity affordable for hardworking Americans today while supporting our country’s long-term energy future.” 
The RWE agreement appears to be the largest deal the Trump administration has struck with an energy company to kill clean energy projects. 
Earlier agreements with other companies, including TotalEnergies and Duke Energy, amounted to $2.7 billion in taxpayer money. 
Following the Trump administration’s $928 million deal with French energy company TotalEnergies to cancel its offshore wind lease off the coast of New York, seven states, including New York, sued the administration over what the New York attorney general, Letitia James, described as a “sham deal” and “illegal agreement.” 
The administration has also spent up to $1.1 billion to boost coal, a move critics argue is “fattening the wallets of his cronies” while raising working Americans’ energy bills, particularly as the US’s war on Iran drives up fuel prices. 
At the same time, the federal government is seeking to slash public input periods for fossil fuel drilling on federal lands while shifting more of the financial risks of cleanup to taxpayers. 
Meanwhile, a report released last fall by the Environmental Integrity Project found that every fully operational LNG facility in the US had violated federal pollution limits in recent years. 
According to the nonprofit research organization, violations included the discharge of illegal amounts of bacteria, zinc, oil, and other pollutants into waterways, as well as failures of terminal managers to submit monitoring reports for waterway discharge. 
Article reasoning-pattern comparisonThis article: 14.7%Maya Yang: 3.5%Mother Jones: 3.8%Confirmation Bias14.7%This article: 5.7%Maya Yang: 1.4%Mother Jones: 0.6%Anchoring Bias5.7%This article: 8.5%Maya Yang: 3.8%Mother Jones: 2.9%Availability Heuristic8.5%This article: 5.1%Maya Yang: 0.8%Mother Jones: 0.7%Representativeness Heuristic5.1%This article: 0.0%Maya Yang: 0.0%Mother Jones: 0.6%Hindsight Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Maya Yang: 1.2%Mother Jones: 1.1%Overconfidence Bias0.0%This article: 14.7%Maya Yang: 4.4%Mother Jones: 6.5%Framing Effect14.7%This article: 0.0%Maya Yang: 2.2%Mother Jones: 0.6%Loss Aversion0.0%This article: 0.0%Maya Yang: 1.1%Mother Jones: 0.5%Status Quo Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Maya Yang: 0.0%Mother Jones: 0.1%Sunk Cost Effect0.0%This article: 13.4%Maya Yang: 1.7%Mother Jones: 1.4%Optimism Bias13.4%This article: 6.5%Maya Yang: 2.9%Mother Jones: 1.8%Pessimism Bias6.5%This article: 21.4%Maya Yang: 11.0%Mother Jones: 8.5%Negativity Bias21.4%This article: 3.6%Maya Yang: 3.3%Mother Jones: 0.9%Self-Serving Bias3.6%This article: 5.2%Maya Yang: 1.1%Mother Jones: 1.0%Fundamental Attribution Error5.2%This article: 0.0%Maya Yang: 0.5%Mother Jones: 0.1%Actor-Observer Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Maya Yang: 0.6%Mother Jones: 0.9%In-Group Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Maya Yang: 0.5%Mother Jones: 0.4%Out-Group Homogeneity Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Maya Yang: 0.9%Mother Jones: 1.2%Halo Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Maya Yang: 0.2%Mother Jones: 0.3%Horn Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Maya Yang: 0.0%Mother Jones: 0.0%Dunning-Kruger Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Maya Yang: 0.7%Mother Jones: 1.0%Recency Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Maya Yang: 0.8%Mother Jones: 0.3%Primacy Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Maya Yang: 0.0%Mother Jones: 0.0%Blind-Spot Bias0.0%This article: 10.1%Maya Yang: 3.1%Mother Jones: 1.6%Ad Hominem10.1%This article: 0.0%Maya Yang: 0.0%Mother Jones: 0.5%Straw Man0.0%This article: 7.5%Maya Yang: 3.0%Mother Jones: 3.0%Appeal to Authority7.5%This article: 0.0%Maya Yang: 1.5%Mother Jones: 1.3%False Dilemma0.0%This article: 0.0%Maya Yang: 1.3%Mother Jones: 1.5%Slippery Slope0.0%This article: 0.0%Maya Yang: 0.0%Mother Jones: 0.1%Circular Reasoning0.0%This article: 9.8%Maya Yang: 5.7%Mother Jones: 4.4%Hasty Generalization9.8%This article: 0.0%Maya Yang: 0.9%Mother Jones: 0.2%Red Herring0.0%This article: 0.0%Maya Yang: 1.3%Mother Jones: 0.4%Bandwagon0.0%This article: 5.4%Maya Yang: 12.4%Mother Jones: 5.9%Appeal to Emotion5.4%This article: 8.0%Maya Yang: 1.2%Mother Jones: 1.0%Begging the Question8.0%This article: 6.5%Maya Yang: 1.7%Mother Jones: 2.1%Post Hoc (False Cause)6.5%This article: 0.0%Maya Yang: 0.1%Mother Jones: 0.1%Tu Quoque0.0%This article: 0.0%Maya Yang: 0.3%Mother Jones: 0.5%Burden of Proof0.0%This article: 0.0%Maya Yang: 0.4%Mother Jones: 0.2%Appeal to Nature0.0%This article: 0.0%Maya Yang: 0.4%Mother Jones: 0.3%Composition/Division0.0%This article: 5.9%Maya Yang: 1.0%Mother Jones: 2.2%Anecdotal5.9%This article: 0.0%Maya Yang: 0.0%Mother Jones: 0.1%No True Scotsman0.0%This article: 3.8%Maya Yang: 0.9%Mother Jones: 1.3%Ambiguity (Equivocation)3.8%This article: 0.0%Maya Yang: 0.0%Mother Jones: 0.0%Gambler’s Fallacy0.0%This article: 0.0%Maya Yang: 0.1%Mother Jones: 0.1%Middle Ground0.0%This article: 0.0%Maya Yang: 0.0%Mother Jones: 0.1%Personal Incredulity0.0%This article: 0.0%Maya Yang: 0.1%Mother Jones: 0.1%Special Pleading0.0%This article: 0.0%Maya Yang: 0.0%Mother Jones: 0.3%Genetic Fallacy0.0%This article: 0.0%Maya Yang: 0.6%Mother Jones: 1.5%Unattributed Quote0.0%This article: 0.0%Maya Yang: 2.2%Mother Jones: 1.3%Quote-first Misdirection0.0%This article: 7.5%Maya Yang: 1.1%Mother Jones: 7.6%Biased Writer Voice7.5%This article: 0.0%Maya Yang: 1.3%Mother Jones: 1.5%Indoctrination0.0%This article: 10.1%Maya Yang: 3.3%Mother Jones: 4.1%Politically Left Leaning Bias10.1%This article: 0.0%Maya Yang: 0.4%Mother Jones: 0.3%Politically Right Leaning Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Maya Yang: 0.0%Mother Jones: 0.6%Attempt to Sell a Product or S…0.0%

613 words analyzed.

Speakers

4speakers44%attributed speech345writer words
Selected voice

Doug Burgum

100%flagged-word coverage
46 attributed words17% of attributed speech66% writer coverage
0%10.0%20.0%Politically Left Leaning B-18.0 ptsWriter: 18.0%Doug Burgum: 0.0%0.0%Biased Writer Voice-13.3 ptsWriter: 13.3%Doug Burgum: 0.0%0.0%

Attribution is sentence-level. Pattern percentages are calculated only from words assigned to that voice.

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Analysis

Hover over highlighted words in the article to view the associated bias or fallacy analysis.