FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Date Published: January 16, 2025
Washington, D.C. Thursday, January 16, 2025 – The Responsible Offshore Development Alliance (RODA) is extremely disappointed following the First Circuit Appellate Court’s issuance of a ruling regarding the Vineyard Wind 1 offshore wind energy project.
The decision is particularly disheartening as the appeals court upheld the lower court’s ruling, which held that fishermen are largely unable to bring claims related to environmental or aesthetic impacts to assert standing. This ruling ignores the deep, direct connection that our members, who work on the water every day, have with the ocean environment, falsely construing them as merely profit-seeking business owners. It is both perplexing and troubling that the court’s decision suggests that a hobbyist or casual nature observer has more standing to understand or challenge potential environmental harm than professional fishermen whose livelihoods, communities, and very identity depend on the health of the sea.
The appeals court has also reaffirmed the agency’s ability to selectively include information in its decision-making. It goes to great lengths to find any evidence to support the government’s sparse record, sending a dangerous message that decisions can be fast-tracked and “figured out later” in order to push projects through more quickly. This approach jeopardizes the integrity of environmental reviews and undermines the precautionary principle that should govern decisions with potentially devastating long-term impacts.
To that end, the court upheld the validity of the final permit issuance even while critical reviews such as impacts to North Atlantic right whales (BiOp) and the project’s Construction and Operations Plan were still incomplete, citing these faults as only procedural. However, these issues are clearly substantive, raising a troubling question for this and future projects: What if analyses conducted after a binding project approval find that protected species, fishermen, or the environment will suffer irreparable harm?
At the same time, using extremely detailed (and often incorrect) procedural arguments, the court ignored many key points we raised regarding the government’s numerous shortcuts in the project’s environmental review. Despite allowing the government to defend its decisions based on paperwork and analyses that emerged after it approved the Vineyard Wind 1 project, the court opted to exclude from consideration equivalent real-world information brought by RODA that greatly affects fishermen and coastal communities.
Unfortunately, this year we have already experienced a disaster that was a direct result of the rushed environmental review process. Our briefs called attention to BOEM’s inadequate review of certain environmental risks, including the ability of turbine blades to withstand local environmental conditions. Yet, community members witnessed firsthand the shards of fiberglass littering where they fish and on their beaches when a turbine failed last summer. It is deeply troubling that we didn’t even have to wait a year to see our concerns come to fruition.
Although the First Circuit ruling showed a persistent lack of understanding regarding fishermen, the ocean environment, and a fundamentally flawed offshore wind leasing process, the most important goal remains to protect the environment and domestic food production. With dozens more offshore wind projects slated in our oceans, and lessons learned every day about the serious consequences of poor planning, it is now more critical than ever that concerned citizens work together to support our fishing communities. RODA remains committed to that task and will continue to advocate for the rights of commercial fishermen and the protection of the marine ecosystem they depend on.
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About Responsible Offshore Development Alliance
Responsible Offshore Development Alliance (RODA) is a broad membership-based coalition of fishing industry associations and fishing companies — across the United States — committed to improving the compatibility of new offshore development with their businesses. The Alliance works to directly collaborate with relevant regulatory agencies, scientists, and others to coordinate science and policy approaches to managing development of the Outer Continental Shelf in a way that minimizes conflicts with existing traditional and historical fishing.
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Contact: lane@rodafisheries.org