January 12, 2022 — A group of New Jersey residents have sued the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) to seek the reversal of its March decision to pursue the development of an area of ocean 30 miles off the coast of New Jersey for wind turbines.
The agency is widely expected to announce a lease sale for the area, called the New York Bight, as soon as this week.
Community group Save Long Beach Island accused BOEM in Washington, D.C., federal court Monday of failing to prepare an in-depth report on potential environmental impacts of selecting 800,000 acres of the New York Bight to lease to developers that would install wind turbines.
BOEM’s March 26 decision advanced Biden’s plans to double the capacity of fledging U.S. offshore wind capacity by 2030 and decarbonize the power sector by 2035.
The failure to prepare an environmental impact statement before selecting five areas of the New York Bight “effectively forecloses any opportunity for the public to comment” on the site’s selection, the complaint says.
Read the full story at Reuters