By Kirk Moore
March 9, 2021
The Biden administration’s direction on offshore wind energy is straightforward. Just five days after a March 3 notice in the Federal Register announced that the Bureau of Offshore Energy Management had resumed work on a final environmental impact statement for the 800-megawatt Vineyard Wind project off southern New England, it was done.
The reversal from the outgoing Trump administration’s 11th-hour shut down of that review was widely expected by both wind power advocates and critics. It’s clearly a signal to the wind industry that things are moving its way – very fast.
The Trump administration’s Department of Interior leadership upended the process, declaring developers would need to start the permitting process over. Wind power skeptics suggested Vineyard Wind was just looking for a better deal when the Biden administration got in place.
On top of that, the department’s top lawyer issued a legal memorandum arguing that Interior officials were under obligation not to approve any ocean industrial development that would impede fishermen’s ability to work in those areas. Commercial fishing advocates saw the Trump administration blow and Interior’s legal memo as a boost for fishermen to slow the pace of wind energy siting and permitting processes. But now the tide running the other way.
“It would appear that fishing communities are the only ones screaming into a void while public resources are sold to the highest bidder, as BOEM has reversed its decision to terminate a project after receiving a single letter from Vineyard Wind,” the Responsible Offshore Development Alliance, a coalition of fishing groups and communities, said when BOEM restarted the Vineyard Wind review.