Saving Seafood

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

Biden administration to restart permitting for major U.S. offshore wind project

February 4, 2021 — The Biden administration said on Wednesday it would restart permitting for the first major U.S. offshore wind farm, reversing a Trump administration decision that canceled the process late last year.

The U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) said in a statement it would resume an environmental review of the Vineyard Wind project as part of the administration’s broad plan to speed renewable energy development on federal lands and waters.

“BOEM is committed to conducting a robust and timely review of the proposed project,” Director Amanda Lefton said in the statement.

The Responsible Offshore Development Alliance, a fishing industry group, said it hoped the resumption of the permitting process would provide new opportunities for the public to weigh in on the project.

Read the full story at Reuters

Major U.S. offshore wind project asks Biden administration to restart permitting

January 26, 2021 — Vineyard Wind, the developer of the first major U.S. offshore wind farm, said on Monday it has asked the Biden administration to restart its permitting process after former President Donald Trump’s government abruptly canceled it last month.

The company said in a statement it had notified the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management that the project would not need to change its construction plan as a result of switching to a new turbine supplier, General Electric Co.

Last month, Vineyard Wind had requested a pause in the federal permitting process while it determined whether changes to its design were necessary, prompting the BOEM to terminate its entire review.

Read the full story at Reuters

Permitting for big U.S. offshore wind farm will resume ‘very, very soon’: Avangrid CEO

January 21, 2021 — The developer of the first major U.S. offshore wind farm said on Wednesday it will soon apply for a federal permit from President Joe Biden’s administration, after former President Donald Trump’s government abruptly canceled its initial application last month.

Vineyard Wind will resubmit its construction plan to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management “very very soon,” Avangrid Inc CEO Dennis Arriola said in an interview, without specifying an exact date. “We believe that the pause button is going to come off and we’re going to continue right where we were,” he said.

Biden has pledged to boost development of renewable energy as part of a sweeping plan to fight climate change and create jobs, and offshore wind proponents expect the nascent U.S. industry to experience dramatic growth.

Vineyard Wind is a joint venture between power company Avangrid, a unit of Spain’s Iberdrola, and Denmark’s Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners. Once constructed, the project 15 miles off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard is expected to provide power to more than 400,000 Massachusetts homes.

Read the full story at Reuters

Vineyard wind project officially taken off the table for now

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.

Read the full story at WWLP

Recent Offshore Wind Changes Offer Promise for Protection of Domestic Fishing

December 17, 2020 — Change is in the wind as three developments have modified the seascape for offshore wind in favor of fisheries.

Defense legislation affirming Jones Act compliance for offshore projects, a decision affecting the Massachusetts-planned Vineyard Wind project and an interior legal memo all help reinforce the importance of fisheries and domestic business when offshore wind projects are proposed.

Read the full story at Seafood News

CHRIS MCCARTHY: Is Vineyard Wind Dead or Just Playing Dead?

December 17, 2020 — The New Bedford fishing industry is celebrating the announcement that Vineyard Wind has withdrawn from the federal permitting process and the process has ended.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, a part of the Department of the Interior, issued a statement on Tuesday, December 15, that finalizes the end of the permitting process to build an 800-megawatt wind energy turbine off of the coast of Massachusetts.

Because Vineyard Wind withdrew from the process on December 1, 2020, the permitting process “is no longer necessary and the process is hereby terminated.”

Termination of the process “is effective immediately” and that exact verbiage is used in the letter to the government by Vineyard Wind and by the government in its announcement.

Read the full story at WBSM

After Trump administration moves to pull plug, Vineyard Wind looks to Biden

December 16, 2020 — Vineyard Wind’s request for “a temporary pause” in the federal review of its 800-megawatt offshore wind energy project triggered an announcement from the Department of Interior that it must restart its entire permit application process.

In a flurry of activity by the outgoing Trump administration, the head of the Interior Department’s legal staff, solicitor Daniel H. Jorjani on Tuesday issued new guidance stressing that if Interior Secretary David Bernhardt “determines that either fishing or vessel transit constitute ‘reasonable uses…of the exclusive economic zone, the high seas and the territorial sea,’ the Secretary has a duty to prevent interference with that use.”

The 16-page memo asserts the secretary of Interior should determine “what is unreasonable” interference from offshore wind turbines “based on the perspective of the fishing user.” It’s a victory for commercial fishing advocates including the Responsible Offshore Development Alliance and Fisheries Survival Fund, who went directly to Bernhardt in July with complaints their concerns are not adequately addressed by the Bureau of Ocean Energy.

The agency had been poised to issue a record of decision Jan. 15 that would allow Vineyard Wind to proceed toward construction – a timeline that now could stretch out another 18 months, unless a Biden administration very supportive of wind energy steps in.

Read the full story at National Fisherman