April 28, 2021 — In its rush to burnish its green bona fides, the Biden administration is showering billions of dollars of subsidies onto European offshore wind developers, and in the process threatening both the environment and the livelihoods of Atlantic coast commercial fishermen.
The most recent example is the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s (BOEM) decision to fast-track offshore leases to wind energy companies in the New York Bight — a 16,000 square mile triangular area off the coast between Long Island and New Jersey, where Govs. Andrew Cuomo and Phil Murphy want to construct at least 18,000 MW of wind. All told, the Biden administration wants to construct 30,000 megawatts of offshore wind by 2030, which would require erecting one 850-foot-tall wind turbine virtually every single day for the next decade.
The Atlantic coast contains some of the most productive fisheries in the world. BOEM is supposed to work with fisheries interests to ensure offshore wind development does not adversely affect habitat and the livelihood of fishermen. In fact, in December of last year, the Department of the Interior issued a detailed memo stating that the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act prohibits offshore wind approvals if a project would interfere with fishing. But just a few weeks ago, the administration reversed those findings.