Saving Seafood

East Coast ‘slow zone’ to protect endangered whales withdrawn

January 16, 2025 — Federal officials have withdrawn a proposed slow zone for ferries, ships and large boats along the U.S. East Coast after months of heated criticism from Martha’s Vineyard, Nantucket, and other coastal communities. Whale conservationists lamented the move as a major loss, saying the proposal was a “much-needed” effort to protect critically endangered North Atlantic right whales from extinction.

In a document filed Wednesday morning, officials from a division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said they decided to withdraw the plan after receiving 90,000 public comments — many of which included requests for more public engagement.

“Despite its best efforts, [the National Marine Fisheries Service] does not have sufficient time to finalize this regulation in this Administration due to the scope and volume of public comments,” the filing said. “NMFS hereby withdraws the August 2022 proposed rule and terminates this rulemaking proceeding.”

Read the full article at Connecticut Public

Trump Again Vows To Stop Windmill Production—Here’s Why He Might Not Be Able To

January 15, 2025 — President-elect Donald Trump said the U.S. government would no longer subsidize new windmill farms and reiterated his stance that he doesn’t “want even one built” during his administration in his latest tirade against renewable energy—but Trump might not be able to block production of turbines altogether.

Key Facts

Calling windmills “an economic and environmental disaster,” Trump wrote on Truth Social Wednesday he doesn’t “want even one built during my administration,” calling them the “most expensive energy” that only works “with massive government subsidies, which we will no longer pay.”

Trump also called for all “dead and broken” windmills to “be ripped down ASAP” and included a video about debris from a broken turbine off the coast of Nantucket littering the beach.

Trump initially proposed “a policy where no windmills are being built” earlier this month, but, as The New York Times notes, he would not be able to control what is built on private land, and he could influence but not fully dictate what is built on federal lands since companies that have already been issued permits are legally allowed to continue their projects.

Read the full article at Forbes

Supreme Court won’t hear Vineyard Wind case; ACK for Whales files new suits

January 15, 2025 — The U.S. Supreme Court will not hear ACK for Whales‘ case against Vineyard Wind, which claimed the permitting process that allowed the 64-turbine wind farm to be built was flawed.

But the local opposition group isn’t being deterred by the latest legal setback, announcing Monday it is filing new litigation against the Department of the Interior and other federal agencies for the permitting of New England Wind, a separate proposed wind farm project 24 miles southwest of Nantucket.

ACK for Whales board member Veronica Bonnet said it was disappointing the highest court in the land did not hear the case, but that it was a long shot. Only 1% of the roughly 8,000 cases that are petitioned to the Supreme Court each year are chosen to be heard, according to the court’s website.

Read the full article at Mass Live

MASSACHUSETTS: Nantucket session with offshore wind regulators moved due to ‘volume of questions’

January 15, 2025 — The volume of questions about an offshore wind turbine blade folding over and sending broken pieces into the ocean, which occurred on July 13 south of the Islands, has led to a rescheduled meeting between Nantucket leaders and federal regulators.

The public information meeting the leaders were planning to host next week with the regulators about the Vineyard Wind 1 project and the blade failure has been moved to Feb. 3.

In December, the Nantucket Select Board invited the public to submit questions they had about the project for representatives of the federal Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement. An announcement from the Select Board this week about the meeting date change explained, “due to the volume of questions received by BSEE, more time was needed to process and prepare responses adequately.”

The Zoom meeting, previously slated for Jan. 14, will convene at 5 p.m. on Feb. 3.

Read the full article at Cape Cod Times

Republican drafting anti-offshore wind order with Trump

January 14, 2025 — New Jersey Republican Rep. Jeff Van Drew, one of Congress’ most vocal foes of offshore wind development, is working on an executive order with President-elect Donald Trump to stop the practice.

The order would halt federal work on offshore wind along the East Coast. Van Drew and other critics have accused the industry of harming whales and fishing. NJ Spotlight News was first to report the development.

“The Biden administration’s reckless green agenda put politics over people, and that ends now,” Van Drew said in a statement. “President Trump is committed to stopping these harmful projects and is taking decisive action.”

Read the full article at E&E News

How a Maryland county tried to sway a Delaware vote on offshore wind

January 14, 2025 — In early December, a new website appeared online urging Sussex County, Delaware, residents to contact their council members and tell them to deny a permit for a proposed offshore wind farm.

The website – StopOffshoreWind.com – materialized days before the Sussex County Council’s vote on the permit, which would allow for construction of an electrical substation needed by US Wind Inc. to build its massive ocean-based power plant.

StopOffshoreWind.com included the names and contact information for council members, as well as an online message form under the phrase, “Write a Letter to your Sussex County Councilmembers.”

“Tell the Sussex County Council to DENY this permit,” it said.

What it did not show were the names of the people or companies that had created and funded it.

Spotlight Delaware has since learned that the website was the creation of a coalition of Maryland wind farm opponents, funded and led by the government of Worcester County, home to Ocean City, a summer beach hotspot that is the primary driver of the county’s tourism-centered economy.

And, many of the local business owners there believe the sight of windmills 15 miles offshore would make the beaches less attractive to tourists.

Zach Bankert, executive director of the Ocean City Development Corp., said his group had led local opposition to offshore wind development in past years. But, with a staff of just two employees, he said the operation was too small to be effective, which is why the county’s Office of Tourism and Economic Development recently took it over.

Read the full article at Maryland Matters

Ill wind: Trump 2.0 reverses course on offshore turbines

January 14, 2025 — Facing the existential threat of a new Trump administration, offshore wind power advocates are mounting their own post-election campaign to win critical support from Republican and Democratic lawmakers and governors.

President-elect Donald Trump’s campaign promise to make sure offshore wind development “ends on day one” of his new administration has cast a pall over the fledgling U.S. wind industry – raising the prospect of the incoming administration cutting off environmental and construction permits and blocking any future offshore wind lease sales by the Bureau of Offshore Energy Management (BOEM).

Wind industry advocates are scrambling to make their case that offshore wind is good for Trump’s stated goals of rebuilding U.S. industry and jobs. Since 2016, wind power companies have invested in purpose-built, U.S.-flagged vessels and have helped promote the use of hybrid power over traditional diesel propulsion – a shift that is being adopted by ferry and passenger vessel operators too.

Pitching U.S. offshore wind power as a bipartisan success story, Liz Burdock, president and CEO of the industry group Oceantic Network, credits Trump’s first administration for helping to get the industry off the ground.

“When President-elect Donald Trump takes office, he will re-inherit an industry he kickstarted. Eight years ago, the first Trump administration began implementing the fundamental framework for our modern offshore wind industry and oversaw three federal lease sales that netted $456 million for the federal treasury,” Burdock wrote in the Nov. 22 issue of Recharge.

Read the full article at WorkBoat

BOEM Begins Environmental Review of Proposed Vineyard Mid-Atlantic Offshore Wind Energy Project

January 14, 2025 — Today, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) announced it will initiate an environmental review of Vineyard Mid-Atlantic’s proposed offshore wind energy project, located in the federal waters offshore New York and New Jersey.

The Vineyard Mid-Atlantic Offshore Wind project is in one of the six lease areas within the New York Bight Wind Energy Area, and as proposed would generate over 2,000 megawatts of electricity from up to 117 wind turbines, enough to power more than 700,000 homes. The proposal includes up to two potential export cable corridors that would make landfall at Rockaway Beach, Atlantic Beach, or Jones Beach, New York.

On January 15, BOEM will publish a Notice of Intent (NOI) to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the Construction and Operations Plan (COP) submitted by Vineyard Mid-Atlantic, LLC. This is the 14th COP review initiated under the Biden-Harris administration.

“Our environmental reviews are essential for helping us identify, evaluate, and address the possible impacts of our renewable energy efforts on other uses of the offshore environment and marine ecosystems,” said Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Director Elizabeth Klein. “Continued engagement with Tribes, local communities, ocean users, and others is critical for ensuring future decisions are well-informed.”

The 43,056-acre lease area is located in federal waters approximately, 20 miles offshore New York and 36 miles offshore New Jersey. See BOEM’s website for a map of the lease area.

Read the full article at BOEM

Supreme Court Declines To Hear Challenge Of Vineyard Wind

January 13, 2025 — The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear the challenge of Vineyard Wind brought by the Nantucket-based nonprofit ACK For Whales, effectively ending the group’s legal effort to stop or delay the wind farm under construction southwest of the island.

The effort to bring its case to the nation’s highest court was a long shot – as the U.S. Supreme Court accepts only 2 percent of the 7,000 cases brought to it each year – and on Monday the court informed ACK For Whales that it had declined to hear its petition for certiorari.

ACK For Whales had alleged that the federal agencies that permitted the Vineyard Wind project violated the Endangered Species Act by concluding that the project’s construction likely would not jeopardize the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale. The group also asserted that the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management had violated the National Environmental Policy Act by relying on a “flawed analysis” from the National Marine Fisheries Service.

Two lower courts had previously dismissed the case, and the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision on Monday brings ACK For Whales’ legal challenge of the Vineyard Wind project to an end.

Read the full article at the Nantucket Current

‘Driving whales crazy.’ Mixed reactions as Trump links wind energy to whale deaths

January 10, 2025 — Debate surrounding the recent deaths of several large whales that have washed up on New England shores ramped up this week after President-elect Donald Trump linked the fatalities to offshore wind development.

During a Jan. 7 press conference at Mar-a-Lago, Trump called wind energy “the most expensive energy ever” and likened wind turbines to “dropping garbage in a field.” He specifically pointed to the Massachusetts area, and said, “the windmills are driving the whales crazy, obviously.” Trump vowed to halt offshore wind development.

His comments have drawn mixed reactions. Scientists and environmental organizations emphasized that there is no current evidence linking wind farms to whale deaths, while some activists welcomed Trump’s support for halting offshore wind development amid ongoing concerns about its impact on marine life.

“Offshore wind is dangerous to marine life, very costly to build (and) maintain, and will harm the critically endangered North Atlantic right whales,” Vallorie Oliver, president of ACK for Whales, a Nantucket-based grassroots group, said.

Read the full article at Cape Cod Times