Despite the uncertainty surrounding the immediate future of the U.S. offshore wind industry after the re-election of Donald Trump, industry participants including the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (“BOEM”) are cautiously moving forward with development activities.
On November 14, 2024, BOEM published the “California Draft Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement” (the “PEIS”) with respect to the five lease areas off the coast of California previously auctioned by BOEM in December, 2022. The PEIS process analyzes the potential impact that offshore wind projects will have on the environment, industries and local communities and discusses measures to avoid, mitigate and monitor such impacts. It is anticipated that BOEM will condition its approval of any Construction and Operation Plans (“COP”) submitted by leaseholders on how any such potential negative impacts are addressed and mitigated by applicants.
The publication of the draft PEIS commenced a 90-day public comment period ending on February 12, 2025, during which interested stakeholders may submit comments or questions through the Federal Register (Docket: BOEM-2023-0061) for BOEM to consider when issuing the final PEIS later in 2025. In addition to the comment period, BOEM will also hold two public meetings on January 28 and 30, 2025. Registration information for those meetings will be posted to BOEM’s website when available.
The PEIS process bears similarities to the process undertaken to study the lease areas auctioned in the New York Bight lease area in February, 2022. There, as in the PEIS, BOEM elected to begin with a regional analysis due to geographical proximity of lease areas and BOEM’s expectations of receiving COPs for all Bight lease areas within similar timeframes. Due to the similarities in the processes, interested parties can look to the final PEIS recently published for the Bight lease areas, and specifically Appendix P thereof, for guidance and for examples of how BOEM incorporates and responds to comments from government agencies, businesses, community or Tribal organizations and individuals.
While there has been deployment of floating technologies on a more limited scale in the North Sea, in Asia and off the coast of Portugal, the projects built in the California lease areas are anticipated to be the first off the Pacific Coast of the United States. They are likely to precede development and deployment of scheduled projects in other areas of the U.S., including the Gulf of Maine, as well.
Given the challenging marine environment of the Pacific Coast, the novel technology to be deployed, and the limited precedent for similar projects in the U.S., interested parties will have a significant opportunity to shape the conditions for the construction and operation of future projects located off the Pacific Coast and the provisions of the final PEIS.
Stay tuned for additional analysis on the US offshore wind space. For analysis on other aspects of the California auction and offshore wind on the west coast, visit our past posts on auction rules, multi-factor bidding, potential factors impacting bidder behavior, permitting issues and the results of said auction.