A planned offshore wind project off North Carolina’s coast that could have powered roughly 300,000 homes has been scrapped after the federal government agreed to spend nearly $1 billion to halt its development, a decision that is drawing sharp reactions and raising questions about future energy costs in the state.

Under the agreement, the French energy company TotalEnergies will be reimbursed for leases it purchased in federal waters near Bald Head Island. In exchange, the company will redirect that investment into oil and natural gas projects, including liquefied natural gas (LNG) production.

The move comes as electricity demand in North Carolina and across the Southeast is rising, driven by population growth and the rapid expansion of energy-intensive data centers.

Energy analysts say removing a major potential source of power from the pipeline could have lasting implications.

“I think folks are trying to figure out how to reconcile this with the fact that we do need more electrons on the grid,” said Katharine Kollins, president of the Southeastern Wind Coalition. “Every state right now is looking at how we can develop more energy, not how we should be taking options off the table.”

The canceled project, known as Carolina Long Bay, was one of two offshore wind developments TotalEnergies had planned along the East Coast. The North Carolina portion alone would have generated about 1,300 megawatts of electricity and brought significant economic development to the region.

State leaders were quick to criticize the decision. In a post on X, Gov. Josh Stein said the Trump administration is “spending nearly $1 billion in taxpayer money to pay off a company to stop investments in the clean energy we need,” calling it “a terrible deal for the people of North Carolina and our country.”

The Interior Department, which negotiated the agreement, defended the move, saying offshore wind projects are too costly and unreliable to meet the nation’s energy needs. In a statement, officials said redirecting investment toward natural gas would provide “affordable, reliable and secure energy” while strengthening grid stability.

The debate reflects a broader divide over how to meet growing electricity demand while keeping costs down.

Offshore wind projects typically require high upfront investment but have no fuel costs once operational. Fossil fuel plants rely on fuel that can fluctuate in price.

“Using a billion dollars of taxpayer money to remove an option for North Carolina and then require that company to invest in LNG just doesn’t feel right,” Kollins said.

She and other advocates argue that offshore wind could help stabilize energy prices over time by diversifying the state’s power mix, particularly during periods of high demand or fuel volatility.

The federal government and industry leaders backing the deal say natural gas offers a more dependable source of power, especially as the grid faces increasing strain.

Part of that shift now points to LNG, which is traded on a global market. That means prices can rise or fall based on international demand, geopolitical tensions and export levels — dynamics that do not affect wind energy.

The cancellation also highlights uncertainty around offshore wind development in North Carolina. Duke Energy, the state’s largest utility, holds a neighboring lease in the same area but paused development last year as it reevaluated costs and policy conditions.

As state regulators and utilities map out how to meet future demand, the loss of Carolina Long Bay narrows the range of options.

For residents, the stakes may ultimately show up in monthly bills.

“When we limit our choices,” Kollins said, “we limit our ability to control costs.”

A pair of Patty Gasso’s Sooners earned recognition for clutch performances against Ole Miss over the weekend. 

Veteran Isabela Emerling was named SEC Co-Player of the Week after her clutch grand slam powered Oklahoma past the Rebels on Monday, and sophomore Audrey Lowry earned SEC Pitcher of the Week after two outstanding appearances. 

Emerling, a redshirt senior, needed just one pitch to change Monday’s series finale. 

She stepped in to pinch hit for freshman Allyssa Parker in the sixth inning and ruined Kyra Aycock’s outing. 

Emerling connected with the first pitch she saw and parked a grand slam deep beyond the fence in left field to put OU on top 5-2.

It was Emerling’s 11th homer of the year, which is three shy of her career-high, and it was the seventh grand slam of her career. 

She also homered in the Sooners’ mid-week triumph over Memphis and hit .545 for the week with a 1.091 slugging percentage. 

Lowry pitched 7 2/3 total innings across two appearances against the Rebels and allowed zero runs. 

She got the start in Saturday’s opener, then stepped in for Sydney Berzon with OU down 2-1 and shut the Rebels out to earn the victory in relief. 

Lowry accounted for five strikeouts and gave up four free passes (two walks and two hit batters) in the pair of appearances. 

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For the season, she’s now 15-1, which ranks third nationally in wins, and has a 2.08 ERA with a 52-9 strikeout to walk ratio across 67 1/3 innings of action. 

Emerling and Lowry became the second OU duo to capture recognition in the same week, and it was the first time both have been honored individually by the SEC this season. 

The No. 5 Sooners will be back on the road this weekend to take on No. 20 LSU.

The series will serve as a reunion for Avery Hodge and Paytn Monticelli, who are both former Sooners, as well as Berzon, who spent the first three years of her collegiate career in Baton Rouge. 

Hodge transferred to LSU following the 2024 season, and Monitcelli departed Norman this past offseason. 

Berzon is coming off her longest outing as a Sooner, where she threw 57 pitches and allowed zero earned runs on Monday against Ole Miss. 

The series opener is scheduled to get underway at 6 p.m. on Friday. 

It happened again: A parent, this one in South Carolina, has accused teachers at her child’s school of hiding information about him from his family. Fortunately, state lawmakers are considering a proposal to protect parents from educators who insert a wedge between them and their children.

Members of the state’s House of Representatives have advanced a parent bill of rights that says parents have a “fundamental” right to direct the upbringing, education, healthcare, and mental health of their child. The proposal is consistent with essential U.S. Supreme Court rulings that uphold parent rights. The provisions are also consistent with U.S. Department of Education policies that protect parents’ access to a child’s academic and medical information.

Earlier this year, the Education Department found the California Department of Education in violation of federal policy for “pressuring” school officials to withhold student information about the child’s “gender” from parents. The federal agency cited a case in which a California parent sued her child’s school because educators had kept secrets about her daughter’s confusion regarding her sex—similar to the new case in South Carolina.

Unfortunately, the examples from South Carolina and California are not unique. Other suits challenging teachers and administrators over information that may have been kept from families have been filed in Maine, Arizona, Michigan, Massachusetts, Colorado, and New Jersey, to name a few states.

Lawmakers in half of all states have adopted provisions stating that parent rights do not end at the schoolhouse door, including South Carolina’s neighbors in North Carolina, Tennessee, and Georgia. Teachers remain mandated reporters and are responsible for documenting safety concerns (potential abuse or neglect), but parents are still their child’s primary caregivers.

The Supreme Court has upheld parent rights in court decisions such as the opinions in Meyer v.Nebraska (individuals have a right “to marry, establish a home, and bring up children”), Wisconsin v. Yoder(parents have a “primary role…in the upbringing of their children” that is “established beyond debate”), and Troxel v. Granville (the U.S. Constitution protects parents’ rights to “make decisions concerning the care, custody, and control of their children”).

And more recently, the Supreme Court issued another ruling in favor of families. The court said that a set of California parents is likely to prevail in a case against the aforementioned California policy because the rules interfere with their rights. The Supreme Court reinstated a lower court ruling that blocked California schools from “misleading parents about their children’s gender presentation.”

The South Carolina teacher union opposes the state’s legislative proposal, calling it “unnecessary.” Yet South Carolina is clearly not immune to cases in which educators keep secrets from parents—or situations in which parents should be the first to know about what takes place in their child’s classroom.

For example, last summer administrators at a North Charleston elementary school hired an art teacher who drew “transcartoons” and promoted “Gendeer (sic) fluid” content online. Parents confronted school officials about the material, and the teacher’s drawings on social media suddenly disappeared—but families may have appropriate concerns that these ideas could wind up in front of their young children.

The South Carolina proposal includes provisions that require educators to allow parents to view the instructional materials that teachers use with students. Such transparency would give peace of mind to parents in North Charleston.

The proposal also gives parents a private cause of action when educators violate parent rights. This legal remedy is valuable for parents when public officials “substantially burden” a family’s rights. Such clauses are part of “strict scrutiny” tests in court and are essential to parent bills of rights because they limit the regulations that lawmakers can impose on families.

The South Carolina proposal met nearly unanimous support (only one member voted against) in the state’s House of Representatives, a rebuke to the state’s teacher union. News of “transcartoons” and teacher secrecy make it difficult to believe special interests when they say protecting parent rights is “unnecessary.”