Saving Seafood

US Interior Secretary Bernhardt meets fishing leaders to discuss offshore wind project solutions

July 22, 2020 — U.S. Department of the Interior Secretary David Bernhardt sat down with a number of fishing industry leaders on 21 July to discuss the industry’s concerns related to a number of offshore wind energy projects.

The projects are located off the coast of New England, and groups representing fishing industry interests in the area have repeatedly objected to the proposed layouts of the projects, particularly Vineyard Wind, one of the largest proposed projects. The groups have called for greater inclusion in the decision-making on the project, which they said has been lacking.

“Ultimately, I need to have a development program that’s done in a way that’s sustainable for everybody,” Bernhardt said in a press conference after the meeting. “You don’t start with a lot of conflict. That’s not the recipe for success, and the consequences of these are significant. They’re significant to families, they’re significant to people, they’re significant for safety issues. We need to do everything right. That’s our obligation.”

Read the full story at Seafood Source

No word on extension for input on wind farm south of Martha’s Vineyard

January 23, 2019 — As deadlines near for public comment on state and federal environmental reviews of Vineyard Wind’s proposed offshore wind energy project, the federal cutoff of Tuesday remains up in the air due to the ongoing partial government shutdown.

“The project team hasn’t heard anything from (the Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management) as the agency remains shuttered,” Vineyard Wind spokesman Scott Farmelant said.

An email to a spokeswoman for the bureau generated an automatic response that she is out of the office and not authorized to work at this time because of the shutdown.

Read the full story at Cape Cod Times

CALIFORNIA: U.S. Department of Interior soliciting interest in developing Central Coast offshore wind farms

October 19, 2018 — The U.S. Department of the Interior is taking public comment on two possible areas for wind farms on the Central Coast.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management is accepting interest in three sites off the California coast for potential wind development. One section would stretch from Cambria to San Simeon approximately 32 miles offshore, while a second site sits offshore the present Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant.

The third area for potential wind development in California is near Humboldt Bay. Much of California’s coastline is otherwise off-limits to offshore wind farms.

The U.S. Department of the Interior is accepting interest from companies who want to develop the wind sites. A 100-day public comment period is also open until January 27.

The administration hopes that will lead to the West Coast’s first offshore wind auction.

Trident Winds, a German company, has already expressed interest in the Morro Bay site. Trident has proposed building roughly 100 floating wind turbines that would generate enough power for 300,000 homes.

Read the full story at KSBY

Rep. Bishop Statement on Department of the Interior’s Proposed ESA Changes

July 20, 2018 — The following was released by the House Committee on Natural Resources:

Today, House Natural Resources Chairman Rob Bishop (R-Utah) issued the following statement in response to the Department of the Interior (DOI) releasing three proposed rules to modernize the Endangered Species Act:

“It’s no secret that modernizing the Endangered Species Act is long overdue. DOI’s proposed rules incorporate public input, innovative science and best practices to improve efficiency and certainty for federal agencies and the public. I commend Secretary Zinke and Deputy Secretary Bernhardt for their excellent leadership on this issue and look forward to working with my colleagues to enshrine these actions into law.”

Background:

DOI’s proposed rules focus on Sections four and seven of the Endangered Species Act, and would address improved consultation processes, changes to critical habitat designations, and issues within the criteria for listing and delisting species. They also incorporate public input and best practices to improve reliability, regulatory efficiency, and environmental stewardship.

Interior Department Proposes a Vast Reworking of the Endangered Species Act

July 20, 2018 — The Interior Department on Thursday proposed the most sweeping set of changes in decades to the Endangered Species Act, the law that brought the bald eagle and the Yellowstone grizzly bear back from the edge of extinction but which Republicans say is cumbersome and restricts economic development.

The proposed revisions have far-reaching implications, potentially making it easier for roads, pipelines and other construction projects to gain approvals than under current rules. One change, for instance, would eliminate longstanding language that prohibits considering economic factors when deciding whether or not a species should be protected.

The agency also intends to make it more difficult to shield species like the Atlantic sturgeon that are considered “threatened,” which is the category one level beneath the most serious one, “endangered.”

Battles over endangered species have consumed vast swaths of the West for decades, and confrontations over protections for the spotted owl, the sage grouse and the gray wolf have shaped politics and public debate. While the changes proposed Thursday by the Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service wouldn’t be retroactive, they could set the stage for new clashes over offshore drilling and also could help smooth the path for projects like oil and gas drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Read the full story at The New York Times

Trump effort to lift U.S. offshore wind sector sparks interest – from Europe

July 5, 2018 — The Trump administration wants to fire up development of the U.S. offshore wind industry by streamlining permitting and carving out vast areas off the coast for leasing – part of its ‘America First’ policy to boost domestic energy production and jobs.

The Europeans have taken note.

The drive to open America’s offshore wind industry has attracted Europe’s biggest renewable energy companies, who see the U.S. East Coast as a new frontier after years of success across the Atlantic.

Less experienced U.S. wind power companies, meanwhile, have struggled to compete in their own backyard, according to lease data and interviews with industry executives. Many are steering clear of the opportunity altogether, concerned by development costs and attracted to cheaper options on land.

The Trump administration hopes the industry will help supply power to the heavily-populated Northeast, eventually creating American jobs in manufacturing turbines, towers and other components. Its efforts are part of a broader push to relax regulations and spur development across the energy complex.

“This would be American produced energy, and American jobs,” said Vincent DeVito, energy policy advisor to Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke. “It fits well with the America First agenda.”

Read the full story at Reuters

MASSACHUSETTS: AG Healey pledges to fight Trump offshore drilling plan along coast

March 14, 2018 — BOSTON — Attorney General Maura Healey on Monday vowed to fight federal plans to open the Massachusetts coastline to offshore oil and gas drilling.

“Massachusetts does not want drilling off our coast and I will fight this proposal to defend our state and our residents,” said Healey in a statement. “Of all the bad environmental ideas the Trump administration has proposed, this one may take the cake.”

President Donald Trump and Department of Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke in January announced a plan to offer federal energy leases in most of the nation’s offshore waters, including the North Atlantic planning region stretching from Maine to New Jersey.

The BOEM proposes two such leases within the North Atlantic Outer Continental Shelf, starting in 2021 and 2023.

Healey filed formal comments with the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management on Friday. She argued that aside from the risk of oil spills, drilling would conflict with state and federal imperatives to reduce carbon emissions. She said the exploration and extraction is not needed to meet America’s energy needs. Healey said she would consider a legal challenge if necessary.

Read the full story at MassLive

 

Maine critics throw cold water on Trump administration’s offshore drilling plan

The proposal to open 90 percent of the nation’s coastline – including the North Atlantic – to oil and gas exploration draws widespread opposition at an event held by federal officials in Augusta.

March 8, 2018 — AUGUSTA, Maine — Fishermen, environmentalists and lawmakers from Maine’s coast called on the Trump administration Wednesday to exclude the North Atlantic from a plan to potentially reopen much of the nation’s coastline to oil and gas exploration.

Representatives with the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management were in Augusta for an open house-style event to field questions about President Trump’s controversial offshore energy proposal. The draft plan released in January calls for reopening 90 percent of the Atlantic and Pacific seaboards to oil and gas drilling, a seismic shift from the 6 percent now available to energy companies. The public comment period on the draft plan closes Friday.

Just two of the 47 proposed lease sales would be in the North Atlantic region stretching from Maine to New Jersey. But the mere prospect of oil drilling in the Gulf of Maine or Georges Bank – and the accompanying environmental risks – was enough to draw more than 60 people to a pre-emptive event held before the bureau’s open house.

Kristan Porter, a fisherman from Cutler who is president of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association, recalled how one of his predecessors told Congress in 1970 that Maine fishermen were “100 percent against” allowing oil drilling in the Gulf of Maine. Nearly 50 years later, Porter said, nothing has changed.

“Allowing the exploration of oil and gas … could devastate our fisheries, our fishermen and our communities,” Porter said at a news conference. “Maine’s fishing industries are dependent on Maine’s clean water. Even minor spills could irreparably damage the Gulf of Maine.”

Porter was joined at the event by representatives of the Natural Resources Council of Maine and other environmental groups, the aquaculture industry, tourism advocates, and Democratic, Republican and independent politicians. All four members of Maine’s congressional delegation also oppose the plan.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

 

MASSACHUSETTS: Gloucester again at center of drilling fight

March 8, 2018 — GLOUCESTER, Mass. — In the late-1970s, an unlikely alliance between environmentalists and commercial fishermen in this storied seaport helped block plans to open up Georges Bank to oil exploration — an effort that ultimately led to a federal moratorium on offshore drilling.

Georges Bank, a shallow and turbulent fish spawning ground southeast of Cape Ann and 100 miles east of Cape Cod, has been fished for more than 350 years. It is once again the center of a battle over drilling, this time stemming from President Donald Trump’s plan to allow private oil and gas companies to work in federal waters.

And, once again, Gloucester is poised to play an oversized role in opposing the efforts.

“It was a stupid idea back then, and it’s a stupid idea now,” said Peter Shelley, a senior attorney with the Conservation Law Foundation, which teamed up with Gloucester fisherman to fight the proposal more than three decades ago. “But yet here we are, fighting it once again. It’s ridiculous.”

The Trump administration says existing federal policy keeps 94 percent of the outer continental shelf off-limits to drilling. A five-year plan announced by Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke last year would open at least 90 percent of that area beyond state waters to development by private companies.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

 

Rhode Islanders march against offshore drilling

March 5, 2018 — PROVIDENCE, R.I. — More than a hundred Rhode Island residents gathered at the State House Wednesday to protest the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management proposal to lift the long-standing ban on offshore fossil fuel drilling in large swaths of US coastal waters.

The protest, organized by Save the Bay, an independent, nonprofit organization devoted to protecting and improving Narragansett Bay, was preceded by a press conference wherein several state officials spoke out against BOEM’s proposal.

Concerned RI residents packed into the State Room as Governor Gina Raimondo, Senator Dawn Euer, Mayor Scott Avedesian of Warwick and others railed against the expansion of offshore drilling in RI and elsewhere.  The proposal came after President Donald Trump’s latest executive order to reverse existing policy that protects waters from oil and gas drilling.

According to BOEM, the proposal, “The Five Year Program, is an “important component” of the President’s executive order to allow domestic oil and natural gas production “as a means to support economic growth and job creation and enhance energy security.”

“While offshore oil and gas exploration and development will never be totally risk-free, since the 2010 Deepwater Horizon blowout and oil spill, the U.S. Department of the Interior has made, and is continuing to make, substantial reforms to improve the safety and reduce the environmental impacts of OCS oil and gas activity,” reads the proposal.

However at Thursday’s press conference, Raimondo said the proposal is a “terrifying” move in the wrong direction, citing “tragedies like Exxon Valdez and the BP oil spill.”

“We should be focusing on harnessing our offshore wind power – not digging for oil off our coast. The proposal that came out of Washington in January to open up our coastal waters to offshore drilling is terrifying,” Raimondo said, to thunderous applause.  “Rhode Island won’t stand for it.”

Reaching the coastlines of all five Gulf Coasts, the long-term impacts of the Deepwater spill are still felt today, taking a devastating impacts on birds, mammals, fish, and other creatures.

Read the full story at the Narragansett Times