Tag Archive for: bureau of ocean energy management

Texas Official Says Biden Admin Green Power Initiative Could Cause ‘Significant’ Environmental Damage

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A Republican official in Texas is opposing the Biden administration’s effort to bring offshore wind to the coast of the Lone Star state due in part to concerns that the technology could have negative environmental impacts.

Texas Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham filed comments with the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) on Monday expressing her opposition to the agency’s plans to hold a 410,000-acre offshore wind lease sale near Texas in the Gulf of Mexico. Buckingham expressed her worry that offshore wind, a key green technology underpinning the Biden administration’s climate agenda, will cause unnecessary ecological damage while posing other economic and logistical concerns about the plan.

“As of now, I see a number of significant concerns — economic, practical, and environmental — that must be addressed before a prospective wind lessee is permitted to cross state-owned submerged land,” Buckingham wrote in her Monday letter, obtained exclusively by the Daily Caller News Foundation. “Even if a lessee were to actually see a path to eking out a profit, introducing hundreds of wind turbines across 410,060 acres of ecologically-sensitive ocean is reckless and directly contradicts the Biden administration’s recent position when leasing federal land in the Gulf of Mexico for oil and gas development,” Buckingham wrote, referencing the administration’s legal efforts to gum up a Gulf of Mexico oil lease by imposing protections for the Rice’s whale.

BOEM Auction Comments (Buckingham) by Nick Pope on Scribd

The administration’s concern for the Rice’s whale in that instance was disingenuous, according to Buckingham, because the federal government does not seem interested in thoroughly investigating whether the past several years’ upticks in whale deaths along the east coast are linked to contemporaneous offshore wind development. The Biden administration’s position on any potential link between offshore wind and whale deaths is that there is not yet any acceptable, robust scientific research connecting the two.

In addition to raising concerns about the impacts that offshore wind development may have on whales, Buckingham further expressed similar worries that offshore wind developments could jeopardize migratory birds that transit the area and disturb marine ecosystems that provide many Texans with their livelihoods.

Buckingham also references the fact that BOEM’s recent attempt to sell offshore leases in the Gulf of Mexico flopped, with two of three available parcels — including one proximate to Texas — garnering zero bids from developers.

The American offshore wind industry writ large has struggled over the course of the past calendar year as inflation, high borrowing costs, supply chain problems and logistical issues have troubled developers up and down the east coast. While some analysts expected to see the industry rebound in 2024, the same combination of problems has prompted several more of the cancellations and renegotiation requests that were piling up by the end of last year.

Despite these struggles, the administration is sticking to the spirit of its goal to have offshore wind produce enough electricity to power 10 million homes by 2030. The Department of the Interior (DOI) announced Wednesday that it plans to hold a dozen offshore wind lease sales by 2028, which contrasts with the four sales and bare minimum acreage the agency intends to lease for offshore oil and gas activity over the same time period.

Offshore wind has caused some division within the environmentalist community. Some green organizations downplay concerns about whales and tout the technology as an essential piece of the zero-emissions energy future, while other environmental groups have sued the government and alleged that environmental reviews for greenlit projects were inadequate or otherwise in violation of the law.

BOEM did not respond immediately to a request for comment.

AUTHOR

NICK POPE

Contributor.

RELATED ARTICLE: Offshore Wind Farms Are Killing Whales ‘In Numbers Never Seen Before,’ Trump Says

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All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Top Biden Bureaucrat Consulted With Eco-Activists To Justify Infusing Social Justice Into Wind Program

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A senior Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) official consulted climate activists about finding legal justification for the agency’s push to get developers to invest in “underserved communities,” according to communications obtained by Protect the Public’s Trust.

Marissa Knodel, a senior adviser at BOEM who formerly worked for eco-advocacy group Earthjustice, sought the advice of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and the Ocean Conservancy, two environmental activist groups, in 2021. Knodel was looking for a legal explanation as to how encouraging offshore wind developers to invest in “underserved communities” aligns with BOEM’s mission, the discovered emails reveal.

Specifically, Knodel wanted to find a legal strategy to make sure that offshore wind bidding credits — which are commitments from developers to do things like support workforce development programs — would support “underserved communities” in ways that align with BOEM’s mandate to pursue “orderly and expeditious” offshore wind development. Functionally, the bidding credits can increase the value of a developers’ bid because the developer commits to engaging in certain activities, according to the Regional Economic Action Coalition, a California-focused economic development and research organization.

The Ocean Conservancy was unable to provide a specific legal roadmap to Knodel, but advised her to proceed carefully so as to not advance offshore oil and gas interests with her actions.

“These records are very revealing about the Biden administration’s grossly disparate treatment of different segments of the energy industry,” Michael Chamberlain, executive director of Protect the Public’s Trust, told the DCNF. “While it appears BOEM was bending over backwards working with special interests to try to tie offshore wind to their environmental justice goals, they were simultaneously twisting themselves in knots looking for ways to prohibit those same rules from benefiting oil and gas producers.”

BOEM previously “asked for feedback on a proposal to award bidding credits to developers that directly invest in underserved community benefits,” Knodel wrote in a message to Ocean Conservancy officials in July 2021. “In addition to learning more about how to identify those communities and what those benefits might be, I am researching how we connect those bidding credits to our [Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA)] authority, both the general purpose of the statute and our 43 USC 1337(p)(4) renewable energy factors specifically,” Knodel continued, before asking the Ocean Conservancy officials whether they have conducted similar research on a potential justification and whether they could help her.

“We’ve thought a bit more about the questions you raised concerning bidding credits for investments that benefit underserved communities. I’m not sure there is a clear-cut answer, but, then again, you probably wouldn’t have asked if there were,” the Ocean Conservancy officials wrote back to Knodel on August 3, 2021.

“We’re 100% supportive of the idea of investing in underserved communities. At the same time, it will be important to ensure that in the process of incentivizing those sorts of investments, BOEM doesn’t create unintended consequences for those communities, like meeting fatigue, creating confusion as multiple would be developers propose different plans, or encouraging would be developers to overpromise/over commit (and underperform),” the Ocean Conservancy officials added. “It would also seem wise to ensure that whatever model or interpretation is used doesn’t create unintended momentum toward expanded revenue sharing for offshore oil and gas activities.”

In January 2021, the Biden administration enacted its “Justice40” agenda, which requires that 40% of the benefits of certain types of environmental spending to flow to “disadvantaged communities.” Environmental justice is effectively the combination of environmentalism and social justice ideology, and the concept plays a major role in the Biden administration’s climate agenda.

During the first few days of August 2021, Knodel also corresponded with NRDC’s Valerie Cleland on an email thread with the subject line “question about offshore wind & underserved communities.”

“I am researching how we connect those bidding credits to our OCSLA authority, both the general purpose of the statute and our 43 USC 1337(p)(4) renewable energy factors specifically,” Knodel wrote to Cleland on August 2, 2021. “To justify offering a bidding credit to developers for investments that directly benefit underserved communities, we need to demonstrate that such investments advance offshore wind development (or, in statutory language, the orderly and expeditious development of offshore wind on the OCS). I’m curious whether you or others you know have researched this question, particularly the legal justification?”

“The key question which we would like to have solid evidence for is that investments by developers in benefits for underserved communities advances our mission to develop OCS energy resources (in this case, offshore wind),” Knodel wrote to Cleland later in the exchange.

However, NRDC does not appear to have been able to provide Knodel with a specific legal strategy, either.

In addition to large volumes of Knodel’s emails, Protect the Public’s Trust was also able to obtain copies of her calendar for 2021 and 2022. Knodel appears to have been scheduled for numerous meetings pertaining to environmental justice, Justice40, diversity, equity and addressing the concerns of Native American tribes, including those located in regions like the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains.

Some of the meetings on her schedule included June 2021 meetings titled “discuss EJ workplan and committees” and “D&I learning journey – Unconscious Bias,” as well as a July 2021 “ocean climate meeting convened by GreenLatinos.” August 2021 meetings included one titled “inclusion as a risk management strategy” and “Justice 40: covered programs.”

BOEM, NRDC and the Ocean Conservancy did not respond to requests for comment.

AUTHOR

NICK POPE

Contributor.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Commercial Fishers Say Biden Admin’s ‘Ocean Justice’ Initiative Totally Ignores Their Concerns

It’s Been A Brutal Year For Offshore Wind — Despite Analysts’ Best Guesses

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

‘Obvious Violation Of Federal Law’: Forthcoming Litigation Could Gum Up America’s Largest-Ever Offshore Wind Farm

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  • Legal proceedings against the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) could threaten to disrupt the timelines for the construction of the largest offshore wind farm in U.S. waters to date, Dominion Energy’s Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (CVOW) project.
  • The Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT) and The Heartland Institute requested that BOEM and the NMFS begin to revise an allegedly inadequate environmental review and associated North Atlantic Right Whale harassment authorizations within the next 60 days, or the organizations will go to court to challenge the agencies’ actions, an outcome which could possibly disrupt CVOW’s timeline.
  • “This letter officially puts BOEM on notice that CFACT is prepared to file suit in order to expose the agency’s clear violation of federal law in failing to protect the North Atlantic right whale,” Craig Rucker, CFACT’s president, said of his organization’s filing and its implications.

Pending legal challenges against the Biden administration could disrupt the timeline for construction of a Virginia offshore wind farm poised to be the largest in the U.S.

The Heartland Institute and the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT) filed a 60 day notice of intent to sue the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), a subagency of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), on Monday, citing an allegedly deficient biological review underlying the agencies’ authorizations for construction teams to legally harass a number critically-endangered North Atlantic Right Whales. The two groups request that the agencies rescind the allegedly deficient review, known as a “biological opinion,” within 60 days and issue a revised number of harassment authorizations.

If the agencies choose to disregard the request and do not rework the number of authorized whale disturbances to align with a new assessment, the organizations will take to the courts to challenge the biological opinion, according to the notice’s text. The notice and the possibility of expensive, time-consuming litigation adds to the risks that Dominion Energy’s Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (CVOW) project faces, according to CFACT.

“This letter officially puts BOEM on notice that CFACT is prepared to file suit in order to expose the agency’s clear violation of federal law in failing to protect the North Atlantic right whale. By refusing to consider the cumulative impact of the dozens of industrial offshore wind facilities, consisting of several thousand individual turbines planned for the East Coast, it adopted a piecemeal approach, which only considered each individual offshore wind project in isolation,” Craig Rucker, CFACT’s president, said of his organization’s filing and its implications. “This is clearly a ploy to artificially reduce the total impact of these projects on the North Atlantic Right Whale. This obvious violation of federal law was ignored by the oversight agencies but will not be tolerated by the courts.”

The notice asserts that the CVOW project’s biological opinion, issued by NMFS and adopted by BOEM, runs afoul of the Endangered Species Act primarily because the assessment does not adequately consider the cumulative impacts that other East Coast offshore wind projects will have on migrating North Atlantic Right Whales that travel near the other developments in addition to CVOW, according to its text.

The Biden administration announced that it had greenlit CVOW development on Oct. 31, setting the project on course to become the largest offshore wind farm in U.S. waters. The administration’s approval followed months of speculation that the offshore wind industry is driving a massive spike in North Atlantic Right Whale deaths along the East Coast.

A considerable uptick in baleen whale deaths has coincided with the 2016 beginning of East Coast developments, a timeline which generally aligns with NOAA’s declarations of “unusual mortality events” for North Atlantic Right and Humpback Whales in 2017 and 2016, respectively, according to its website.

While critics of offshore wind have suggested that offshore wind-related sonar activity could be disorienting the whales and their sensitive hearing, which in turn makes them far more likely to transit dangerous areas or struggle to find food in ways they otherwise would not, government agencies and several major eco-activism organizations maintain that there is no available science demonstrating that there is a link between offshore wind and whale mortality. The government’s current position is that climate change and vessel strikes are primarily responsible for the increase in mortalities rather than ocean industrialization.

Offshore wind is a key aspect of the Biden administration’s overall green energy agenda, which aims to have the U.S. power sector reach net-zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2035 and net-zero for the entire U.S. economy by 2050. The administration is striving to have offshore wind generate enough power to satisfy the demand of 10 million American homes by 2030, but concerns over the industry’s ecological impact and its substantial economic struggles have put that target in jeopardy.

Representatives for BOEM and NMFS declined to comment, stating that they are unable to comment on matters of litigation. Dominion Energy and the White House did not respond immediately to requests for comment.

AUTHOR

NICK POPE

Contributor.

RELATED ARTICLE: Biden Admin To Green Light Another Massive Offshore Wind Farm Amid Industry Troubles, Mounting Whale Deaths

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.