The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management is seeking to remand its earlier approval of the construction and operations plan for Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind.
The New Jersey project already is on at least a temporary pause. Neither construction nor operation will happen anytime soon, because it terminated its financial agreement with New Jersey, half of the partnership quit the joint venture and the Environmental Protection Agency has remanded its air permit for further review. (See Developer Shelves Atlantic Shores, Seeks to Cancel ORECs.)
The Sept. 26 court filing further clouds the future.
The Jersey Shore anti-wind group Save Long Island Beach Inc. applauded the court filing Sept. 27: “It’s a rare and important moment. It confirms the seriousness of the technical and scientific concerns we’ve raised, for many years now — especially regarding the impacts to endangered North Atlantic right whales and cumulative construction and operation harms to the North Atlantic right whale migration corridor.”
An Atlantic Shores spokesperson said Sept. 29: “Atlantic Shores is disappointed by this course of action and has no further comment.”
All 11 of the offshore wind projects approved by BOEM received their approvals during the Biden administration.
Hours after the start of his second term, President Donald Trump set about undoing his predecessor’s work. He or his agencies have canceled future development, halted the progress of existing early-stage projects and moved to block construction of approved middle-stage projects.
One of the 11 projects is complete, one was canceled by the developer in 2023 and five are under construction. The Trump administration has motioned in court to remand the approvals of the other four: Atlantic Shores, New England Wind, SouthCoast Wind and US Wind.
Save Long Beach Island Inc. sued the federal government July 25 in U.S. District Court for D.C. (1:25-cv-02211) seeking to overturn approval of Atlantic Shores project.
The Sept. 26 federal filing is similar to the three other motions to remand: It indicates that BOEM wants to re-examine its earlier approval because it might not have fully accounted for all of the impacts of Atlantic Shores in its initial review.
BOEM intends to conduct a full review and then approve, disapprove or approve with conditions the Atlantic Shores construction and operations plan it approved Oct. 1, 2024, during the waning days of the Biden administration. As such, the wind opponents’ lawsuit should be stayed until conclusion of the review, the federal government asserts, because their case may well become moot.
The Trump administration has shown a sustained antipathy toward offshore wind development. However, the Sept. 26 federal motion asserts Atlantic Shores would merely be speculating if it is worried that BOEM might not reapprove the project.
And if Atlantic Shores did not like the outcome of the review, the Department of Justice wrote in its motion, it is free to file a challenge, assuming all jurisprudential requirements are met.
The Department of Justice further asked the court not to impose any artificial deadline for the remand process, as it might affect BOEM’s ability to conduct a proper and thorough analysis.
