AUSTIN – The Texas Public Policy Foundation has filed an administrative petition challenging the Vineyard Wind 1 offshore wind energy project, claiming the livelihoods of the local fishermen they represent have been severely impacted by the project.
“The Biden Administration violated at least thirteen provisions of federal law when it approved the Vineyard 1 offshore wind project,” said TPPF senior attorney Ted Hadzi-Antich. “In the process, they tacitly agreed to the destruction of a prime fishing area that has been used by commercial fishermen to feed Americans for generations.”
The petition follows TPPF’s lawsuit challenging the project's approval process and requests the U.S. secretary of the interior and the director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) to reconsider the prior administration’s approval of the construction and operations permit for the project, which is located off the coast of Massachusetts.
On his first day in office, President Trump ordered a temporary withdrawal of offshore wind leasing on the outer continental shelf and directed the secretary to review all offshore wind leases in order to address legal deficiencies.
“Our administrative petition sets forth those legal deficiencies in detail so that the secretary is in a position to rescind the construction and operations plan of the Vineyard Wind 1 project and to issue an order requiring that the entire area be remediated to the condition it was in prior to the approval of the (plan),” said said Hadzi-Antich.
During the initial approval process, the Departments of the Interior, Commerce, and Defense acknowledged that the project would harm the environment and national security. Nonetheless, the project was permitted to proceed.
Last July, TPPF’s warnings came true when an enormous windmill blade the size of a football field collapsed into the ocean, scattering fiberglass debris for miles and closing beaches on the East Coast.
“This administrative petition provides the secretary of the interior ample reasons to rescind Vineyard Wind’s construction and operations plan,” said TPPF attorney Eric Heigis. “President Trump’s requested review of offshore wind projects gives the Secretary a golden opportunity to correct the previous administration’s missteps when it came to approving offshore wind projects.”
