Texas conservative group backs legal challenge to offshore wind farms - Houston Chronicle
Texas conservative group backs legal challenge to offshore wind farms
Guests tour the five turbines of America's first offshore wind farm, owned by the Danish company, Orsted, off the coast of Block Island, R.I. The Texas Public Policy Foundation, which has advocated for oil and gas interests, claims plans for more than 60 turbines off the East Coast would disrupt local fishermen and endangered North Atlantic right whales. David Goldman/Associated Press
WASHINGTON – The Texas Public Policy Foundation has for years made a name for itself in Washington and Austin campaigning on conservative issues such as rolling back pollution laws and cutting government spending.
Now the Austin-based think tank is seeking to stop President Joe Biden’s plans to develop an offshore wind industry in the United States through a lawsuit aimed at blocking what would be the first U.S. commercial-scale offshore wind farm, Vineyard Wind off the coast of Massachusetts.
Related Knowledge Center: Offshore wind energy
Over the next decade, U.S. offshore wind power is expected to grow from a single 30-megawatt wind farm off Rhode Island to more than 2,000 MW of capacity along the Atlantic Seaboard. There are contracts for wind power off the coasts of Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Maryland, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Virginia.
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory has estimated the United States has over 4,000 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind potential, enough to power the country four times over.
The growth in part being spurred by state solicitations, including in New York, where then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) set a commitment of 9,000 MW of offshore wind by 2035, and in Connecticut, where in June 2021, Gov. Ned Lamont (D) signed legislation authorizing the construction of 2,000 MW of offshore wind by 2030.
The offshore development is also being driven by an investment tax credit set to end in December 2019 and is equal to 12 percent of expenditures. U.S. Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Tom Carper (D-Del.) have introduced a bill to extend the tax credit for up to eight years.
The Interior Department has held eight competitive lease sales that resulted in 15 offshore wind leases over 1.7 million acres that has the potential for 21 GW of capacity. In February 2022, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management completed a bidding process that realized $4.37 billion for 488,000 acres across six lease areas in federal waters off New York and New Jersey.
Projects have also been proposed off the Southeast coast, off California and Hawaii, and for the Great Lakes.