The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) announced on Monday that it has completed the environmental review for the proposed New England Wind project off the coast of Massachusetts.
The proposed project is expected to generate up to 2,600 megawatts of electricity, enough to power more than 900,000 homes, the agency stated in a Feb. 26 press release.
“This document demonstrates the administration’s steady progress towards attaining clean energy goals that will better the lives of Americans now and in the future,” BOEM director Elizabeth Klein stated.
The New England Wind project is located about 20 nautical miles south of Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, and about 24 nautical miles southwest of Nantucket, Massachusetts.
Developers Park City LLC submitted a two-phased project plan that includes up to 129 wind turbine generators, with up to five offshore export cables that would transmit electricity to onshore transmission systems in Barnstable and Bristol County in Massachusetts.
BOEM published a draft environmental impact statement (EIS) on Dec. 23, 2022, and initiated a 60-day public comment period that closed on Feb. 21, 2023.
The agency also held virtual public meetings with tribal nations, local community members, commercial fishing interests, and other ocean users. It received 776 comments when developing the final EIS.
“Diverse public input was essential to BOEM’s careful and thorough analysis of the environmental impact of the proposed New England Wind project,” Ms. Klein said in a statement.
BOEM said it will issue a record of decision on whether to approve the project no earlier than April 2024. If the project is approved, the record of decision will identify any conditions of approval.
Offshore wind energy is a key component of the Biden administration’s climate agenda.
The administration wants to build 30 gigawatts of fixed-bottom offshore wind energy by 2030—enough to power more than 10 million homes—and another 15 gigawatts of floating wind turbines by 2035, enough to power 5 million homes.
The Department of Interior has approved six commercial-scale offshore wind energy projects, while BOEM has held four offshore wind lease auctions, generating nearly $5.5 billion in high bids. These auctions cover areas in New York, New Jersey, the Pacific, and the Gulf of Mexico.
Petition Opposing Offshore Wind Project
An online petition opposing offshore wind farms started in January 2023, spurred by the deaths of dozens of whales along the East Coast. The petition has since amassed over 520,000 signatures.It warns that the proposed offshore wind farms will result in “irreversible ecological damage” to the marine environment, potentially causing injury or death to thousands of marine species.
“These massive, unprecedented, experimental projects have been fast-tracked without meaningful public input, and with all the impacted cities and towns denied the right to home rule by executive action of the Governor of New Jersey,” the petition reads.
The petition also calls for “a thorough independent, transparent investigation” of whale deaths that have occurred in New Jersey in the past months.
On March 16, 2023, four Republican congressmen held a hearing in Wildwood, New Jersey to call for a pause on all offshore wind projects.
Rep. Christopher Smith of New Jersey called for a pause on such work until the U.S. Government Accountability Office can investigate the “sufficiency of the environmental review processes for offshore wind projects.”
Mr. Smith was joined by fellow New Jersey Republican Jeff Van Drew, Andy Harris of Maryland, and Scott Perry of Pennsylvania. They claim federal agencies have ignored concerns about the effects of wind farms on whales.
