The closure of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management delays
Vineyard Wind meetings.
Vineyard Wind has emerged as the first U.S. offshore wind
project to face delays caused by the ongoing federal shutdown.
Avangrid Renewables and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners
were due to start building the 800-megawatt wind farm off of Massachusetts this
year, but they have already seen postponements to two public meetings relating
to the project’s draft environmental impact statement.
The meetings were scheduled for Jan. 8 and 9 with the Bureau
of Ocean Energy Management, an agency within the Department of the Interior.
Further public meetings with BOEM on Jan. 15 and 16 seem likely to be pushed
back as the partial shutdown continues.
“As far as I’m aware, there’s no clarity on when they will
be held,” said Richard Heap, editor-in-chief at the wind industry information
service A Word About Wind.
BOEM’s press team was not available to comment because of
the shutdown. An out-of-office message confirmed staff are not allowed to work
until the federal budget issue had been resolved.
On Jan. 7, Vineyard Wind issued a statement encouraging members of the public to
submit comments online to BOEM. “BOEM continues to accept online comments
during the shutdown,” Vineyard Wind said.
It is still unclear what impact these delays will have on
project timelines.
The company has said the project will require more than 25
federal, state and local permits and authorizations, with BOEM acting as the
lead federal agency and the Energy Facilities Siting Board being the main point
of liaison for state affairs.
BOEM’s role in the permitting process could imply
substantial delays to project timelines if the shutdown drags on, since every
day adds to the amount of work that the federal agency will have to catch up
on.
“Any delay will depend on the length of the shutdown and the
backlog created,” said Chris LeWand, global clean energy practice co-leader at
FTI Consulting.
Impact on future leasing?
For now, Vineyard Wind seems to be the U.S. offshore wind
project most significantly affected by the shutdown because of its reliance on
BOEM permits as it gets ready for construction.
In general, said LeWand: “Offshore wind development projects
are at the early stages of development, with likely construction start dates
several years out. Any delays need to be put in this context.”
He also noted that the Department of Energy and the Federal
Energy Regulatory Commission already had funding for 2019, so their programs
were unlikely to be affected by the shutdown.
More widely, though, the current halt in federal work could
have an impact on future offshore wind leasing plans by creating delays in the
planning process.
Last April, for example, BOEM announced it was conducting a
high-level assessment of all U.S. Atlantic offshore waters for potential future
wind lease locations. It is not known whether this lease area assessment work
is on hold during the shutdown.
Fossil fuel permits advance
Elsewhere, media outlets have noted that while renewable
planning work is on hold, federal teams are still engaged in fossil fuel
projects. Bloomberg reports the Interior Department was still issuing drilling
permits for oil companies wanting to operate in the Gulf of Mexico.
“The Trump administration is working overtime to make sure
the shutdown doesn’t halt oil drilling too — in ways critics say may flout
federal law,” according to Bloomberg.
And Reuters reported that the Alaska Bureau of Land
Management, another part of the Interior Department, was still moving forward
with meetings related to the expansion of oil development in Alaska’s National
Petroleum Reserve.
“A BLM spokesman in Washington said the public hearings over
permits to drill in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska were exempt from
the shutdown,” Reuters reports.
Offshore wind delays, meanwhile, come after BOEM
hosted a
record-breaking auction for the sector just one month ago.
“It’s tempting to see the shutdown as a short-term hissy fit
by a petulant president, but the fact is that it has delayed some meetings,”
said Heap. “Offshore wind farms are long-term projects, and developers will
always factor in some delays into their permitting. However, these kinds of
procedural delays can have knock-on effects later in the development process.”
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