Wind

Native American group joins call for US offshore wind halt until tribal rights assessed

Nation’s oldest indigenous people’s lobby calls out Biden administration for not protecting tribal environmental and sovereign interests during sector ramp up

Joe Biden.
Joe Biden.Foto: GPA Photo Archive/White House / Adam Schultz https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/
  • Tim Ferry

The US’ oldest association of American Indian and Native Alaskan tribes joined the growing chorus of interest groups calling for a pause in offshore wind activities to allow further assessment of the sector’s impacts on the marine ecosystem.

In a resolution passed 24 February, the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) called on the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) to “halt all scoping and permitting for offshore wind projects until completion of a comprehensive and transparent procedure adequately protecting tribal environmental and sovereign interests is developed and implemented.”

BOEM is lead regulator of energy development in federal waters under the Department of the Interior (DoI). Interior secretary Deb Haaland is a member of the Laguna Pueblo tribe in New Mexico.

NCAI has not yet responded to requests by Recharge for comment and clarification on what specific tribal interests might be impacted by offshore wind development.
The resolution comes amid a spate of whale deaths in the US Northeast that sector opponents blame on offshore wind survey activities. The nation’s first commercial-scale offshore array, Vineyard Wind 1, is the target of four separate lawsuits by a range of fisheries and environmental groups.
President Joe Biden’s administration has made environmental justice a top concern for the offshore wind rollout on the way towards the 30GW by 2030 national goal. Through multiple executive orders and lease mandates, the administration said it aims to “secure environmental justice and spur economic opportunity for disadvantaged communities through investing in and building a clean energy economy.”

BOEM said it “engages in both “formal government-to-government consultation and informal dialogue, collaboration, and engagement” with Tribal authorities and other Native organisations.

Ten projects on the Atlantic coast have consulted with Tribal governments, according to BOEM’s 2022 Tribal Consultation Report, with as many as 80 federally and state-recognised Tribes engaged with on the California offshore wind rollout.
A study by Colby College researchers published in the journal Renewable Energy Focus, however, found that while federally recognised tribes are entitled to government-government consultation for energy development when they may be affected, “in practice, the process and parameters of tribal consultation are not well defined and can be inconsistent and lack effectiveness”.
This is not the first time that indigenous tribes have impacted the US offshore wind sector. Concerns over possible submerged burial grounds off coastal Nantucket in Massachusetts contributed to the demise of Cape Wind, the US’ first project that was ultimately abandoned over widespread protests.

Industry advocacy group American Clean Power Association's vice president of offshore wind Josh Kaplowitz said the offshore wind industry “is committed to meaningful engagement with tribal nations throughout the consultation process to ensure a just and equitable clean energy transition.”

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Published 28 February 2023, 19:38Updated 14 October 2023, 13:54
AmericasUSBOEMDepartment of InteriorDeb Haaland