December 17, 2020 — As far as the Trump administration is concerned, Vineyard Wind is no longer in line to be the first utility-scale offshore wind development in the United State.
The U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management officially declared Vineyard Wind’s federal permitting process “terminated” with a posting published in the federal register Wednesday.
Precisely what that means is unclear for the fate of a project that is supposed to deliver renewable energy to Massachusetts and had been in line to be the first major offshore wind farm in America.
On Dec. 1, Vineyard Wind announced that it had temporarily withdrawn its construction and operations plan from further review by BOEM, referring to it as a “pause [in] the ongoing process” that would not delay the planned start of clean power generation in 2023. But based on BOEM’s posting Wednesday, the federal government is treating the withdrawal as the end of the road, at least for now, for Vineyard Wind.