November 20, 2023 — Maine leaders are urging federal energy regulators not to pursue offshore wind projects in fertile fishing grounds off the state’s coastline.
In a letter to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Gov. Janet Mills and the state’s congressional delegation members call on the agency to remove a section of state waters — included in the so-called Lobster Management Area 1 — from the federal government’s plans to develop offshore wind.
“Given the importance of these fishing grounds to Maine’s fishing industry, the significant feedback that your agency has already received, and the recently passed Maine law that disincentivizes development in LMA 1, it is clear these areas are inappropriate for inclusion in the final Wind Energy Area,” they wrote.