Maine joined six other states Tuesday in filing a federal lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Interior, arguing the cancellation of a massive wind project in the New York Bight was an illegal and politically motivated act that will leave ratepayers in Maine and the other states vulnerable.

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, opposes a decision by Interior Secretary Douglas J. Burgum to kill a lease that would have powered 1.3 million homes. The scuttled project was in New York, but Maine officials claim the fallout will be felt here, too.

In the lawsuit, Maine argues that it doesn’t exist on an energy island. It imports electricity from New York to meet its needs. As Maine’s demand is likely to double by 2050, the loss of a major regional power source like the New York Bight project jeopardizes the entire region’s reliability.

The lawsuit argues that the cancellation limits New York’s ability to export power to Maine and other New England states, especially during the winter months when the regional power grid is most likely to be stressed.

The impact is also expected to hit Mainers in their monthly utility bills, according to the lawsuit.

Under state law, Maine electricity suppliers must purchase renewable energy certificates to meet clean energy mandates. Removing a large source of these credits from the regional market would drive up prices for “already burdened New England ratepayers,” according to the lawsuit.

Beyond the grid, the lawsuit paints a grim picture of Maine’s environmental future without new renewable energy development. Maine has the fourth-longest tidal coastline in the continental U.S., making it uniquely exposed to the effects of a warming planet.

The complaint notes rising sea levels and the fast warming Gulf of Maine pose a direct threat to the state’s coastal communities. By 2050, the lawsuit predicts sea-level rise could cost Maine $2.1 billion in lost gross domestic product, and eliminate fishing, tourism and real estate jobs.

The administration justified the cancellation by citing “classified national security concerns,” but Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey and the other attorneys general call this a “pretext,” pointing to President Donald Trump’s public statements calling wind energy a “scam.”

Instead of windfarms, the federal government reached a settlement to return $795 million to the leaseholder, Attentive Energy LLC, on the condition that the refunded money be invested in oil and gas development.

State attorneys general from Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Vermont also joined New York in challenging the cancellation of the lease.

The states say it will harm their states’ economies, energy grids and climate goals. The states are asking the court to vacate the cancellation, arguing that the federal government failed to consider the interests of states like Maine that have built their energy futures around offshore wind.

“This administration cooked up a sham deal to pay a foreign energy company hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to abandon offshore wind and invest in oil and gas instead,” New York Attorney General Letitia James said. “We are fighting back to stop this illegal agreement.”

Separately, a coalition of renewable energy groups filed a complaint in District Court in Oregon on Sunday over Pentagon officials not completing national security reviews for new onshore wind farms on private lands. They say this inaction has brought a total halt to all wind project development. The Pentagon has said its siting clearinghouse is actively evaluating land-based wind energy projects and it’s a complex, time-consuming process.

The Interior Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday about the New York-led lawsuit, but Burgum defended the deal last month during a hearing at the House Natural Resources Committee.

U.S. Rep. Dave Min, a California Democrat, asked Burgum if it’s appropriate for Interior to send almost $1 billion to a foreign oil company to stop producing energy, while people are dealing with sky-high utility bills.

Burgum said TotalEnergies was simply refunded their money, which they have already invested in other energy projects in the U.S.

“They essentially gave the U.S. government an interest-free loan and their money was refunded to them,” he said.

TotalEnergies purchased the lease off New York and New Jersey for $795 million in 2022. This was planned as a larger project, with the potential to generate 3 gigawatts of clean energy to power nearly one million homes. It would have brought $10 billion in savings to ratepayers across New York, with $500 million in savings for low-income households, on electricity bills, according to the complaint filed Tuesday.

Burgum has said companies were sold a product that was only viable when propped up by massive taxpayer subsidies when they bid for these offshore wind leases in 2022, under former President Joe Biden.

The Trump administration is spending nearly $2 billion to get energy companies to walk away from U.S. offshore wind projects. It adopted this strategy after federal courts thwarted Trump’s efforts to stop offshore wind development through executive action.

Democrats in Congress are investigating the TotalEnergies agreement, and California is investigating a deal that ended a floating offshore wind project, Golden State Wind, proposed off the state’s central coast.

Bluepoint Wind also agreed to end its lease for an offshore wind project in the early stages of development off the coasts of New Jersey and New York. Tuesday’s complaint does not challenge this agreement, as the lease has not been canceled yet.

Portland Press Herald Staff Writer Penelope Overton contributed to this story.