June 10, 2021 — Fresh off announcing its intent to explore wind energy initiatives on the U.S. West Coast, the Biden administration is now looking for opportunities to do the same in the Gulf of Mexico.
On Tuesday, 8 June, the U.S. Department of the Interior announced it would release a request-for-information (RFI) solicitation to determine if there’s interest in employing wind technology off the coasts of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama.
June 4, 2021 — The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) does not need to conduct full environmental reviews under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) when granting an offshore wind farm lease, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals has affirmed. The decision followed a lawsuit by commercial fishing organizations and seaside municipalities who claimed that BOEM violated NEPA and the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA) when it auctioned an offshore lease to Equinor (formerly Statoil) without performing an environmental review of the anticipated windfarm project. The decision puts to rest the question of whether a mere lease sale may trigger extensive environmental review under NEPA, potentially streamlining the initial lease acquisition process, but also requiring the investment of significant funds before developers have cleared environmental review.
In Fisheries Survival Fund, et al. v. Sally Jewell, et al.,1 plaintiffs challenged BOEM’s issuance of the lease, arguing that it violated NEPA because it failed to analyze the environmental impacts of constructing and operating a wind energy facility. Leases for offshore energy projects proceed under different processes depending on whether BOEM or the developer proposes an area for lease. Either way, BOEM must consult with state task forces, other state and local representatives, and with representatives of Indian Tribes whose interests may be affected. Before issuing a lease, BOEM follows a four-step process, issuing a Call for Information and Nominations, completing the Area Identification process, publishing a Proposed Sale Notice, and publishing a Final Sale Notice.
Here, BOEM published an environmental assessment at the same time it published the Proposed Sale Notice for the wind energy lease at issue. The environmental assessment found that the reasonably foreseeable impacts of the lease sale would not significantly impact the environment. Plaintiffs argued that that more extensive environmental review was required, not just of the lease itself but of the full impacts of the anticipated wind farm, alleging that BOEM violated NEPA by failing to perform this more extensive review. BOEM maintained throughout the litigation that additional analysis and environmental review under NEPA was not required until Equinor conducted a site assessment and proposed a construction and operations plan for the wind energy facility.
May 26, 2021 — The Biden administration plans to open the California coast to offshore wind development, ending a long-running stalemate with the Department of Defense that has been the biggest barrier to building wind power along the Pacific Coast.
The move adds momentum to the administration’s goal of reaching 100% carbon-free electricity by 2035, coming just weeks after the country’s first large-scale offshore wind farm was approved off the coast of New England. Today, the country has just a handful of offshore wind turbines in the Atlantic Ocean, with around a dozen wind farms being developed in federal waters off the East Coast.
“It’s an announcement that will set the stage for the long-term development of clean energy and the growth of a brand-new, made-in-America industry,” national climate adviser Gina McCarthy says. “Now we’re thinking big and thinking bold.”
The agreement identifies two sites off central and Northern California with the potential to install massive floating wind turbines that could produce 4.6 gigawatts of electricity, enough to power 1.6 million homes.
Interest in offshore wind on the West Coast has grown for years, especially with California’s own ambitious goal to cut greenhouse gas emissions. The deep waters off the coast have the potential to produce a significant amount of energy.
May 25, 2021 — The Biden administration has reached an agreement with California seeking to advance wind energy development off the state’s northern and central coasts.
The Interior Department said in a statement that initial areas of development could bring up to 4.6 gigawatts of energy to the grid, enough to power 1.6 million homes.
The federal government aims to sell wind energy leases in mid-2022, the department said.
“Today’s announcement reflects months of active engagement and dedication between partners who are committed to advancing a clean energy future,” said Interior Secretary Deb Haaland in a statement.
“The offshore wind industry has the potential to create tens of thousands of good-paying union jobs across the nation, while combating the negative effects of climate change,” she added.
May 24, 2021 — For the past three decades, Town Dock fishermen and their counterparts across the Northeast have struggled to stay afloat in the face of strict regulations designed to rebuild depleted stocks of cod, flounder and other species.
Some diversified, turning to so-called underutilized species such as squid and whiting to supplement their declining income, while others retired or left for jobs on land.
But now that many of the species have rebounded and government regulators are increasing the amounts of fish they can land, the fishermen face a new threat: offshore wind power projects.
Last month members of Responsible Offshore Development Alliance, or RODA, a national coalition of fishing industry members, boycotted a meeting with a federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management task force, which is considering auctioning of 800,000 acres of New York Bight — shallow waters south of Long Island and east of New Jersey — to potential wind farm operators. RODA said its members feel they are not being listened to.
On April 6, RODA said 1,665 members of fishing communities in every U.S. coastal state submitted a letter to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, or BOEM, and National Marine Fisheries Service requesting a transparent and balanced national planning process for offshore wind development.
May 20, 2021 — The following was released by the Fisheries Survival Fund:
The Fisheries Survival Fund is disappointed in the decision issued today by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. However, we will continue to work with the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) and all federal, state, and local government agencies, as well as wind energy farm developers, to ensure that these new uses of our coastal waters are created in such a way that they do not devastate existing uses, which in this case is one of the most important scallop grounds on the East Coast.
The court ruled that because BOEM doesn’t technically commit to anything at the lease stage, it is too early to challenge the siting of the wind farm under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The decision means that affected parties cannot challenge a lease location under NEPA until BOEM approves a Construction and Operations Plan (COP) for the wind farm. However, that is very late in the process, and changing the lease location at such a late date would be exceedingly difficult.
Since this litigation was filed, eight additional leasing areas have been proposed, all of which conflict with natural scallop habitat and historic scalloping grounds.
We will continue to work with BOEM to seek modified versions of several of the leasing areas due to their proximity to sensitive scallop areas. Under the current boundaries, historically important scallop areas will be directly next to wind turbines, and all of the negative environmental impacts they bring with them. By shifting the boundaries of some of these areas, and creating additional buffer zones between scallop areas and the turbines, BOEM can better ensure that scallop fishing will be unaffected, without diminishing the potential for wind power in the area.
May 18, 2021 — Beyond the Biden administration’s sunny outlook on prospects for a new U.S. offshore wind power industry, concerns continue among federal government experts about how building ocean turbine arrays could affect the fishing industry and protecting endangered whales.
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management issued its final record of decision May 11 to permit Vineyard Wind, the 800-megawatt project off southern New England that would be the first truly utility-scale development in U.S. waters.
So far, the only offshore wind operating here is at two pilot projects, the five-turbine, 30 MW Block Island Wind Farm off Rhode Island, and the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project, twin turbines with 12 MW total capacity. With nearly three decades of offshore wind experience in Europe, companies based there are exporting their expertise to the U.S.
But the Vineyard Wind plan as outlined in the BOEM decision document – a grid layout of 62 turbines spaced at 1-nautical-mile intervals – is so unnerving to some mobile gear fishermen that they may abandon fishing in the area, according to Army Corps of Engineers.
Commercial fishermen, led by the Responsible Offshore Development Alliance, had advocated 4-nm-wide vessel transit lanes, which they contend would enhance safety.
May 17, 2021 — North Atlantic right whales have gained protections and sea turtles are more imperiled under a new federal calendar for harbor dredging that came to light May 14 in a federal lawsuit that seeks to protect sea turtles.
The entire calendar for dredging at some seaports along the East Coast has been modified in an effort to increase protections for North American right whales, according to a federal report with the new calendar. This species has been reduced to a population of some 360 animals.
The change allows harbors to be dredged in warmer months in North Carolina and continuing south through Georgia and Florida, to the islands of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Dredging is routine maintenance and typically involves vacuuming up debris that has filled a shipping channel and impedes ships as they use a port. The process has a history of harming certain sea life.
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.
May 12, 2021 — The federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management issued its record of decision Tuesday, May 11, approving the Vineyard Wind offshore energy project. The decision is a bellwether event that could trigger a wave of domestic investment in wind power equipment and shipbuilding. Fishing industry advocates worry that it sets the stage for privatizing the public resource on which their livelihoods rely.
“BOEM continues to abdicate its responsibility to the public and leave all decision making to large, multinational corporations, including this decision which includes effectively no mitigation measures to offset impacts to critical ocean ecosystems and commercial fisheries,” said the Responsible Offshore Development Alliance in a statement. “To the best of our knowledge BOEM did not even consider any mitigation measures recommended by RODA or any fisheries professionals, scientists, or natural resource managers, despite having clearly defined requests available to them.”
The record of decision is an interagency document for permitting by BOEM, the Army Corps of Engineers, and the National Marine Fisheries Service. Vineyard Wind developers Avangrid and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners next must submit a facility design report and a fabrication and installation report detailing details for how the 800-megawatt, $2.8 billion turbine array “will be fabricated and installed in accordance with the approved Construction and Operations Plan,” according to the announcement from the Department of Interior.
The decision hews to the agency preferred alternative of a grid layout of 62 turbines spaced at 1-nautical-mile intervals. Commercial fishermen, led by the Responsible Offshore Development Alliance, had advocated 4-nm-wide vessel transit lanes, which they contend would enhance safety.