May 13, 2021 — The White House’s top climate official promised Wednesday that the administration will listen to concerns of the fishing industry as President Biden pushes forward with a major expansion of offshore wind energy.
Gina McCarthy — who led the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under President Obama and is now the first-ever White House national climate adviser — said the administration already took those complaints into account before granting approval Tuesday to Vineyard Wind, the nation’s first large-scale offshore wind farm.
“We needed to make sure with Vineyard Wind that we paid close attention to the concerns of our fishers,” McCarthy told 12 News in an interview. “Our fisheries industry is important — it’s part of who we stand for — and so we did tremendous outreach.”
She added, “Certainly there remains concerns, and we’re going to be diligent all through the construction process.”
Set to be staged out of the Port of New Bedford, Vineyard Wind is an 84-turbine project off Martha’s Vineyard that is supposed to generate 800 megawatts of electricity — enough to power 400,000 homes — once it’s up and running. Federal, state and local leaders have hailed it as a milestone for Southern New England and the nation as a whole.