Saving Seafood

BARRY RICHARD: Biden’s Rush to Put Windmills Off Massachusetts’ Coast

March 9, 2021 — It didn’t take long for area fishermen to realize that Joe Biden is not their friend.

Biden, or whoever is calling the shots these days in Washington, rushed through a review of the Vineyard Wind offshore wind farm, moving the project, expected to be online by the end of 2023, closer to becoming a reality.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, an arm of the U.S. Department of the Interior, says it has completed the project’s final environmental impact statement. The project now moves to the final permitting phase.

President Donald Trump slowed the review process over concerns about the negative impacts an offshore wind farm could have on the commercial and recreational fishing industries. Fishermen say the wind farm, some 15 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard, would pose navigational hazards and negatively impact marine life resulting in higher prices for seafood and lost jobs.

Read the full opinion piece at WBSM

BOEM finalizes environmental statement on Vineyard Wind

March 9, 2021 — Moving quickly on the Biden administration’s renewable energy agenda, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management completed its environmental review of the 800-megawatt Vineyard Wind plan, clearing the path for the first truly commercial-scale U.S. offshore wind project.

“The United States is poised to become a global clean energy leader,” said Laura Daniel Davis, a deputy assistant secretary in the Department of Interior, in announcing the step Monday. “To realize the full environmental and economic benefits of offshore wind, we must work together to ensure all potential development is advanced with robust stakeholder outreach and scientific integrity.”

Located about 15 nautical miles off Martha’s Vineyard, Mass., Vineyard Wind is viewed as a bellwether for the nascent U.S. offshore wind industry. Its rapid progress in recent weeks is a 180-degree turnaround from December, when Trump administration appointees at Interior moved to kill the permitting process.

Wind industry analysts have predicted BOEM approval would trigger new investment commitments to building out a U.S.-flag wind energy workboat fleet and East Coast port improvements to accommodate up to 15 other projects now in various planning stages.

For the fishing industry, the outcome of the Vineyard Wind approval is a critical test of how the Biden administration will handle its concerns going forward.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Feds Complete Final Environmental Review Of Vineyard Wind, Set To Be First Major Offshore Wind Project In U.S.

March 9, 2021 — Federal officials have completed the environmental review of the Vineyard Wind I offshore wind project that is expected to deliver clean renewable energy to Massachusetts by the end of 2023.

The U.S. Department of the Interior said Monday morning that its Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) completed the analysis it resumed about a month ago and will officially publish notice of the project’s final environmental impact statement in the Federal Register later this week.

The 800-megawatt wind farm planned for 15 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard was the first offshore wind project selected by Massachusetts utility companies with input from the Baker administration to fulfill part of a 2016 clean energy law.

Read the full story at WBUR

MASSACHUSETTS: BOEM completes final environmental review of Vineyard Wind project

March 9, 2021 — After recent delays, federal officials have completed their final environmental review of the Vineyard Wind project, which is expected to deliver clean, renewable energy to hundreds of thousands of Massachusetts homes by 2023.

The Department of Interior announced Monday that the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) completed a review that had been terminated in the final weeks of the Trump administration after Vineyard Wind withdrew a key plan.

However, just weeks into the Biden administration, and after Vineyard Wind “rescinded” its withdrawal of the plan, BOEM announced it was resuming its review “in support of the Biden administration’s goal to address climate change and promote offshore renewable energy production.”

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

Biden administration backs nation’s biggest wind farm off Martha’s Vineyard

March 8, 2021 — The Biden administration took a crucial step Monday toward approving the nation’s first large-scale offshore wind farm about 12 nautical miles off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard, Mass., a project that officials say will launch a massive clean-power expansion in the fight against climate change.

In completing a final environmental review of Vineyard Wind, the Interior Department endorsed an idea that had been conceived two decades ago but had run into a well-funded and organized opposition from waterfront property owners near the tony island, including then-Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D), who died in 2009, and the billionaire industrialist William I. Koch.

The $2.8 billion project is set to be built several miles south of the original plan fought by the Kennedy family and will be out of sight from the family’s Hyannis compound.

The Biden administration framed Monday’s decision as a way to increase the nation’s renewable energy capacity while creating well-paying construction jobs building turbines and other clean-energy equipment.

“The demand for offshore wind energy has never been greater,” Laura Daniel Davis, principal deputy assistant secretary of land and minerals at Interior, told reporters in a news call. “The technological advances, falling costs, increased interest and the tremendous economic potential make offshore wind a really promising avenue.”

Read the full story at The Washington Post

Biden accused of playing politics on Vineyard Wind

March 4, 2021 — When the Trump administration dragged its feet on the environmental permitting of Vineyard Wind, wind energy proponents in Massachusetts and across the country cried foul, claiming politics was driving the process.

But now that the Biden administration is in office, the same claim is surfacing as the president quickly moves in the opposite direction.

The Responsible Offshore Development Alliance, which advocates for the US fishing industry, on Wednesday released comments it sent to Amanda Lefton, the new head of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, questioning how her agency could simply revive a regulatory process that had been terminated by the same agency (which was then under Trump’s oversight) in December.

“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 alliance said in a statement.

Vineyard Wind has gone through a lengthy review process, in part because it’s the first major offshore wind farm to go through the process. The company submitted a construction and operations plan, or COP, to the federal government in December 2017. A year later the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management issued a draft environmental impact statement on the project, which was pulled back after the agency decided it couldn’t review the project in isolation from a host of other wind farm projects being proposed up and down the coast.

Read the full story at Commonwealth Magazine

BOEM resumes final environmental review for Vineyard Wind

March 4, 2021 — The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management on Wednesday announced it is resuming preparation of a final environmental impact statement on the Vineyard Wind offshore energy project, reversing a move to end the permitting process in the final weeks of the Trump administration.

Vineyard Wind official submitted a Jan. 22 letter to BOEM asking to restart the process, and in a March 3 Federal Register notice the agency said it is moving ahead.

The planned 800-megawatt project off southern Massachusetts was awaiting a final record of decision on a draft EIS when the developers withdrew their construction and operations plan Dec. 1, 2020, saying they needed to “conduct additional technical and logistical reviews” to modify the plan for using larger, more powerful GE Haliade-X turbines.

BOEM came back with a Dec. 16 Register notice that because of Vineyard Wind’s withdrawal it was terminating the environmental impact study. The agency and its parent Department of Interior said the developers would need to start the permitting process over if they wanted to proceed.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Vineyard Wind Back on Track Under Biden’s BOEM

February 5, 2021 — Vineyard Wind appears to have regained its place at the front of the offshore wind project permitting line and is back on track to becoming the first utility-scale offshore wind farm in the United States.

The federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management announced Wednesday afternoon that it will resume its review of the 800-megawatt wind farm planned for 15 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard and will “proceed with development of a Final Environmental Impact Statement,” one of the last steps before the project can truly get underway. The decision could help ensure Massachusetts starts getting clean power from the project by the end of 2023.

“We’re very pleased that BOEM has decided to move forward with the permitting process for our Vineyard Wind 1 project,” a Vineyard Wind spokesperson said. “We look forward to working with the agency as we launch an industry that will create thousands of good paying jobs while also taking meaningful steps to reduce the impact of climate change.”

Following a string of permitting delays imposed on the project by the Trump administration, Vineyard Wind on Dec. 1 announced that it was pulling its project out of the federal review pipeline in order to complete an internal study on whether the decision to use a certain type of turbine would warrant changes to construction and operations plan. The Trump administration declared the federal review of the project “terminated.”

Read the full story at WBSM

Biden administration gives boost to offshore wind

February 5, 2021 — The Biden administration’s announcement this week of a plan to resume an environmental review of a wind farm off the Massachusetts coast and accelerate green-energy development was welcomed by developers and proponents of projects for Long Island.

Biden on Jan. 27 signed an executive order calling for the Interior Department to “identify steps to accelerate responsible development of renewable energy on public lands and waters,” a stark change from the Trump administration, which had slowed federal approvals. Trump himself was a vocal opponent of wind energy, saying it killed birds, was unreliable and even caused cancer.

The federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management on Wednesday released a statement saying it would restart the environmental review and work to develop a final environmental impact statement needed to approve the project’s construction and operations plan. The project, called Vineyard Wind, a company based in New Bedford, Massachusetts, had withdrawn its application for the construction plan for the 800-megawatt project, one of the first expected to come online, to review the prospect of using larger turbines.

Read the full story at Newsday

Biden administration puts Vineyard Wind energy project back on track

February 4, 2021 — The long-delayed Vineyard Wind offshore project has been put back on track by the Biden administration.

In one of her first actions as the new director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Amanda Lefton pledged on Wednesday to conduct a “robust and timely” review of Vineyard Wind and essentially resume the permitting process where it left off in December. That’s when the developers of Vineyard Wind withdrew their proposal for a wind farm that could generate 800 megawatts of electricity, enough power for more than 400,000 homes, to be built about 12 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard. Soon after Joe Biden became president last month, the developers rescinded their withdrawal and requested that BOEM resume its review.

Vineyard Wind, a joint venture of Avangrid and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, was to be the first major offshore wind farm in the United States. It would be financed through contracts with three major Massachusetts electric utilities. But the project ran into delays under the Trump administration, after commercial fishermen raised concerns that the giant turbines would be hazardous to their work.

Read the full story at The Boston Globe