California is picking a fight with the White House over offshore wind, and it's getting personal. Governor Gavin Newsom (D-CA) on Tuesday accused President Donald Trump of deliberately slowing down clean energy projects to give his fossil fuel buddies a leg up.

“Donald Trump is wasting millions of taxpayer dollars on corrupt, backroom deals that undo the very energy independence that offshore wind has the potential to deliver for hardworking Californians,” Newsom said on X, quoting a post from Attorney General Rob Bonta. “Stay tuned,” he added ominously.

Bonta had earlier announced that California sent a “Notice of Intent to Sue” the Trump administration, accusing it of “illegally working to kill offshore wind projects” and replacing them with “more windfalls for his fossil fuel friends.” The notice targets what the state calls an “unlawful agreement between the U.S. Department of Interior (DOI) and Golden State Wind LLC (GSW) that puts at risk California’s clean energy gains.”

According to the press release, the DOI allegedly violated the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA), which is supposed to give California a “say in the offshore wind leasing program and prevent corrupt backroom deals.” The state claims the DOI “illegally allocated” over $120 million to GSW to abandon an offshore wind energy lease it secured in 2022 for a 2-Gigawatt offshore wind farm in the Morro Bay Wind Energy Area. That's a lot of megawatts—and a lot of money—to walk away from.

This isn't California's first run-in with the Trump administration over energy. Newsom previously criticized Trump's decision to restart the Sable Offshore Corp (SOC) pipeline off the Santa Barbara coast, which was shut down after a 2015 oil spill caused significant environmental damage. The pipeline restart has been a sore point for environmentalists and state officials alike.

California isn't alone in this fight. New York Attorney General Letitia James sued the Trump administration earlier this month over a similar deal with French energy company TotalEnergies SE (TTE). James said the administration was giving nearly $1 billion to TotalEnergies to divest from offshore wind projects in favor of fossil fuels. That's a billion-dollar incentive to ditch clean energy.

Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has also piled on, criticizing Trump for favoring his “big oil friends” while downplaying the climate crisis. The message from the left is clear: the Trump administration is waging a war on clean energy, and states are fighting back.

The Department of the Interior and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment. But with California and New York both threatening lawsuits, the legal battle over offshore wind is just getting started.