'Timely with protection'| US regional offshore wind reviews set for New York Bight debut

The main US offshore wind regulator responded to demands for broader environmental reviews earlier in the development process as well as industry calls for faster, more streamlined permitting by launching a regional impact programme for the newly awarded leases in the New York Bight.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) announced the programmatic environmental impact statement (PEIS) process, a new approach by the federal agency to expand the scope of the environmental review from a project-by-project basis to a region-wide one to take into account the regional and cumulative impacts of the offshore wind industry on marine ecosystems.

“This new regional approach is an evolution of our process to help ensure timely decisions that advance offshore wind while protecting the ocean environment and marine life,” said BOEM director Amanda Lefton. “In addition, this approach ensures both a comprehensive view of the New York Bight area and improved process efficiencies for future project reviews.”

BloombergNEF wind energy analyst Chelsea Jean-Michel said that the PEIS signals a “holistic approach to regional analysis, an attempt by BOEM to find synergies in the assessments that we'll be doing for each lease area”.

She added that as “this is the first time BOEM is doing this, it's difficult to say whether or not this is actually going to significantly speed up permitting from the federal side”.

But if it does, “it may set the standard for environmental reviews as we move forward.”

Walter Cruickshank, BOEM deputy director, cautioned, however, that while the PEIS programme might speed up the timeline post-lease sale, it doesn’t satisfy the core demand for a regional, pre-lease sale EIS that would establish industry parameters in any area considered for offshore wind development.

“There's a difference between what they're asking for and what we're doing in the New York Bight,” he said.

The specific circumstances of the New York Bight enable the PEIS process, Cruickshank noted, including aggressive deployment timelines by offtake states New York and New Jersey that will fast track project development, meaning that the technology deployed for these projects will likely be similar to what is being used now.

“We can do a programmatic EIS knowing that the sort of project designs that can be conceptualised by the PEIS will probably be pretty close to the sort of thing you get in the actual COP [construction and operations plan],” he said.

BOEM’s regulation of offshore wind development is guided by the 2011 ‘Smart from the Start’ policy that was intended to reflect rapid advances in offshore wind technology.

Policy under fire

Rather than conduct a full-scale environmental impact statement (EIS) at the beginning of the process of opening up an area of the OCS for energy development, as is done for offshore oil & gas, acreage in a designated WEA undergoes an environmental assessment (EA) which only studies the site assessment risk– not development risk– in a given lease.

A developer creates a COP after buying and assessing an offshore wind lease, which is then submitted for a multi-year, multi-agency environmental impact statement (EIS).

The policy has come under fire from environmentalists and fisheries for backloading the environmental review after the project has already spent years in development, likely has contracted offtake with a state and now constitutes a crucial element of meeting federal and state renewable energy goals, weighting the scales in favour of approval.

Developers contend that they shoulder all of the risk for the project even after spending millions of dollars on the lease itself.

But conducting a full-scale EIS too early was of little value, Cruickshank countered, as it would be less likely to applicable to future technologies or development plans.

“An EIS at that stage when we are just beginning the public dialogue and getting input on interest may not hold up when we get a COP, as it won't be very representative of any development that might occur,” he said.

The introduction of the PEIS process won't satisfy critics who want earlier environmental review but does signals greater willingness from BOEM to respond to the public's concerns, Cruickshank said.

“People want greater transparency, they want more dialogue they want to see how we're making our decisions they want what data we are using, how do we look at that data?” he said. “You don't have to do an EIS to meet those goals.”