UPDATE 7:26pm: Congrats to Deepwater Wind, winner of both leases!
It’s a big day for offshore wind far off the coasts of Massachusetts and Rhode Island. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) is holding offshore wind lease sales for two big areas that will ultimately provide huge amounts of clean, renewable, affordable energy for our region. The auction process will be complex, but we hope to know the winner(s) later Wednesday or sometime Thursday.
When I’m not wearing my The Green Miles cape, I work for the National Wildlife Federation, where we’ll be watching the lease sales with great interest. The competitive auction marks an exciting milestone towards a new frontier of clean energy needed to confront climate change, the biggest threat to America’s wildlife and birds this century.
It’s also real progress towards President Obama’s climate action plan goal of doubling electricity fueled by renewable energy by 2020 nationally, including 10 gigawatts worth of permits for renewable energy projects on public lands. Another lease sale for Virginia is set for next month.
How can we keep this progress going in the months and years ahead? We need governors, state legislatures, and Congress to continue demonstrating America’s commitment to clean energy, both in individual power contracts and more broadly through federal tax incentives.
To learn more about how properly-sited, responsibly-developed offshore wind energy can benefit wildlife, visit NWF.org/OffshoreWind.
