April 1, 2021 — Days after taking office, President Joe Biden signed a sweeping new executive order to conserve 30% of the nation’s total land area and 30% of all waters it controls by 2030.
Biden administration aims for vast offshore wind expansion
March 30, 2021 — Top Biden administration officials on Monday outlined new goals for building 30,000 megawatts off offshore wind energy generation by 2030, including another wind energy area covering nearly 800,000 acres in the New York Bight.
The Bureau of Offshore Energy Management announced it will initiate its environmental impact statement process for the Ocean Wind project, Ørsted’s planned 1,100 MW array off New Jersey, as the agency recently started an EIS for the South Fork wind development south of Rhode Island and just weeks after finalizing its analysis for the 804 MW Vineyard Wind project in southern New England waters.
Environmental reviews could start for as many as 10 more projects this year, the agency said.
The waters between the New Jersey beaches and Long Island already include federal lease held by developers intending to build the Atlantic Shores turbine array off Atlantic City, and the Empire Wind project close to the New York Harbor approaches. BOEM has been gauging potential developer interest in areas farther offshore and said it will now begin an environmental assessment of those areas.
With 20 million inhabitants in the region, it’s “the largest population center in the United States” with an enormous energy market, said Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, who spoke of the opportunity for U.S. shipbuilders and other industries in a new energy sector.
What Biden’s New Offshore ‘Wind Energy Area’ Means for NJ, NY and US Clean Energy
March 30, 2021 — The Atlantic Ocean off of New Jersey and New York will become the epicenter of a national effort this decade to energize its power grid with renewable sources like wind and solar after President Joe Biden named the continental shelf off the two states as a “wind energy area.”
The White House’s announcement Monday locks in the federal government to an already all-in race by Mid-Atlantic coastal states to build thousands of skyscraper-sized turbines.
The efforts to build wind farms from North Carolina’s Outer Banks to Cape Cod off of Massachusetts are already nearly a decade in the making, with 17 current projects in development up and down the coast. Several are in planning stages for the waters off of New Jersey and New York. All involve European power companies, including the Danish developer Ørsted, which in 2019 won New Jersey’s first bid for a farm.
For years, the projects languished in a federal queue or permitting processes at the state level. But recently, governors like Phil Murphy in New Jersey have established ambitious goals for renewable energy production from wind farms. Biden’s announcement all but cements offshore wind’s place in the future of American power production.
Only seven wind turbines currently rotate in American waters, but more than 1,500 are in planning or development stages from North Carolina to Massachusetts, according to an NBC10 Philadelphia analysis of the federally leased areas and the 17 projects currently in development.
Biden targets big offshore wind power expansion to fight climate change
March 30, 2021 — The Biden administration on Monday unveiled a goal to expand the nation’s fledgling offshore wind energy industry in the coming decade by opening new areas to development, accelerating permits, and boosting public financing for projects.
The plan is part of President Joe Biden’s broader effort to eliminate U.S. greenhouse gas emissions to fight climate change, an agenda that Republicans argue could bring economic ruin but which Democrats say can create jobs while protecting the environment.
The blueprint for offshore wind power generation comes after the Biden administration’s suspension of new oil and gas leasing auctions on federal lands and waters, widely seen as a first step to fulfilling the president’s campaign promise of a permanent ban on new federal drilling to counter global warming.
The United States, with just two small offshore wind facilities, has lagged European nations in developing the renewable energy technology. The administration of Biden’s predecessor Donald Trump had vowed to launch offshore wind as a promising new domestic industry but failed to permit any projects.
Biden administration launches major push to expand offshore wind power
March 29, 2021 — The White House on Monday detailed an ambitious plan to expand wind farms along the East Coast and jump-start the country’s nascent offshore wind industry, saying it hoped to trigger a massive clean-energy effort in the fight against climate change.
The plan would generate 30 gigawatts of offshore wind power by the end of the decade — enough to power more than 10 million American homes and cut 78 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions. To accomplish that, the Biden administration said, it would speed permitting for projects off the East Coast, invest in research and development, provide low-interest loans to industry and fund changes to U.S. ports.
Fishing operators also have raised concerns about the impact of wind farms in the Atlantic Ocean, an area critical to the seafood industry.
David Frulla, a partner at the firm Kelley, Drye and Warren who represents the trade association for the Atlantic scallop fishery, said in an interview that his clients have warned federal officials for years about the risks posed by offshore wind development plans.
For example, the southeast tip of an area the administration has identified in the New York Bight called Hudson North intersects with a scallop fishing spot, he said. The eastern perimeter of a second area, Hudson South, is just at the edge of an important area for scallops, Frulla said. Altogether, the scallop catch in the New York Bight is worth tens of millions of dollars, he said.
“We were saying, ‘Don’t roll the dice,” Frulla said. “They rolled the dice.”
The group Frulla represents, the Fisheries Survival Fund, has a case pending in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit that challenges a decision by the Obama administration to auction offshore leases in the region without doing a lengthy environmental analysis in advance. In that instance, federal officials said they did not have to conduct a full analysis until a company has proposed a construction and operations plan.
By delaying the analysis by several years, Frulla said, the government made it almost impossible to block the project. “Essentially it’s a foregone conclusion,” he said. “There’s so much investment.”
Biden Administration Announces a Major Offshore Wind Plan
March 29, 2021 — The Biden administration on Monday announced a plan to vastly expand the use of offshore wind power along the East Coast, aiming to tap a potentially huge new source of renewable energy that has so far struggled to gain a foothold in the United States.
The plan sets a goal of deploying 30,000 megawatts of offshore wind turbines in coastal waters nationwide by 2030, enough to power 10 million homes. To help meet that target, the administration said it would accelerate permitting of projects off the Atlantic Coast and prepare to open up waters near New York and New Jersey for development. The administration also plans to offer $3 billion in federal loan guarantees for offshore wind projects and invest in upgrading the nation’s ports to support wind construction.
The moves come as President Biden prepares a roughly $3 trillion economic recovery package that will focus heavily on infrastructure to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions and tackle climate change, an effort he has framed as a jobs initiative. Officials made a similar case on Monday, saying offshore wind deployment would create 44,000 new jobs directly in the offshore wind sector, such as building and installing turbines, as well as 33,000 new indirect jobs.
NOAA’s Paul Doremus: Seafood aligns well with Biden’s sustainability goals
March 22, 2021 — Senior officials from NOAA Fisheries speaking at the Seafood Expo North America Reconnect event on Thursday, 18 March, said U.S. President Joe Biden’s emphasis on action on climate change could align well with support for the domestic seafood industry.
The new administration has not even been in office for two month and still have several political appointments waiting to be confirmed. However, NOAA Fisheries Acting Assistant Administrator Paul Doremus told the audience numerous synergies exist between the fishing industry and climate interests in Biden’s “building back better” resiliency plan.
East Coast Fishermen Call for Fair Monument Policy From Biden Administration
March 19, 2021 — Over a dozen representatives of the New England and Mid-Atlantic seafood industry met with members of the Department of Interior and NOAA Fisheries officials, including Sam Rauch, Deputy Assistant Administrator for Regulatory Programs last Friday to hear their case for a fair and science-based marine monument policy.
East Coast industry members specifically asked to allow commercial fishing in areas within the monument as stated in an Executive Order from last June. That order, issued by the Trump Administration, was an amendement to the Obama Executive Order that created the monument on the basis of the Antiquities Act. President Obama’s proclamation prohibited commercial fishing, with a phase-out period for American lobster and red crab fisheries, within the monument’s boundaries.
President Biden asked the Secretary of the Interior to “… conduct a review of the monument boundaries and conditions that were established by … Proclamation 10049 of June 5, 2020 (Modifying the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument), to determine whether restoration of the monument boundaries and conditions that existed as of January 20, 2017, would be appropriate.”
Industry members raised concerns about creating marine monuments without input from the regional councils, without a basis of the best scientific advice available, and when the final economic and social impacts on the area’s communities would be negative.
They noted that allowing fishing in the Atlantic monument area is consistent with the Biden Administration’s goals of following the best available science, as well as its commitment to economic and environmental justice.
GOV. DUNLEAVY: Secretary Blinken, protect Alaska’s fisheries
March 18, 2021 — Dear Secretary of State Blinken,
In light of your imminent meeting with Chinese officials in Alaska, I write to impress upon you the international challenges faced by our commercial fishing industry.
Perhaps no group of Alaskans has been impacted more severely by the global economic collapse than our fishers and processors. Both coped admirably with the logistical challenges of running businesses that rely on the free movement of labor, but neither escaped the pain of demand shock that rippled outward from shuttered restaurants, reductions in consumer spending, and the partial collapse of many export markets.
However, not all of the industries’ woes can be traced back to the pandemic. Many are preexisting conditions stemming from hostile decisions made by China and Russia during the previous decade.
In July 2018, China’s government imposed retaliatory tariffs on Alaska seafood, decimating our market share in the world’s largest and fastest-growing seafood market. Today, these tariffs have reached an outrageous 30-40% on top of several extreme and unproven COVID-mitigation measures intended to slow the importation of Alaska seafood.
NOAA to Host Listening Sessions on Section 216(C) of the Executive Order on Tackling the Climate Crisis
March 18, 2021 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:
NOAA is seeking public input in response to an Executive Order issued on January 27, 2021, titled Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad.
Section 216(c) of the Executive Order Directs NOAA to collect recommendations on how to make fisheries—including aquaculture—and protected resources more resilient to climate change, including changes in management and conservation measures, and improvements in science, monitoring, and cooperative research.
NOAA requests written input on 216(c) from interested parties on how best to achieve the objectives of the as described in the Executive Order. Interested persons are invited to submit comments by email by April 2, 2021 to OceanResources.Climate@noaa.gov.
National Stakeholder Calls
We are also hosting three national stakeholder calls—two are open to all stakeholders and one is specifically for state and tribal governments.
March 23, 2021: Conference call open to all stakeholders nationally
Time: 12:00 to 2:00p.m. EST
Dial in: (888) 769-8793 (toll-free); or (212) 547-0306
Passcode: 4379815#
Time limit: 3 minutes per person; additional rounds as time allows
This call will be recorded
March 25, 2021: Conference call open to all state and tribal governments
Time: 1:30 to 3:00 p.m. EST
Dial in: (877) 716-4288 (toll-free); or (312) 470-7386
Passcode: 6268962#
This call will be recorded
April 1, 2021: Conference call open to all stakeholders nationally
Time: 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. EST
Dial in: (800) 857-9693 (toll-free); or (630) 395-0354
Passcode: 5473603#
Time limit: 3 minutes per person; additional rounds as time allows
This call will be recorded
Read the notice as filed in the Federal Register.
For further information:
Heather Sagar, heather.sagar@noaa.gov, 301-427-8019.
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