Posted on December 5, 2014 by Katherine Kennedy
The 468 megawatt Cape Wind project, slated for construction in federal waters off the coast of Massachusetts in Nantucket Sound, is the first offshore wind project to be proposed and approved in the United States. The project has strong support from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, many national, state and local environmental groups, organized labor and many others.
But being the first in an innovative venture is always difficult, and unsuccessful litigation by project opponents – some funded in large part by billionaire Bill Koch – has slowed the pace of the project. By Cape Wind’s count, thirty-two cases have been filed by project opponents. Cape Wind has ultimately prevailed in all of these actions.
A recently issued but unheralded district court decision now signals yet another legal victory for Cape Wind.
In April 2010, after a lengthy and comprehensive environmental review and permitting process which included preparation of two environmental impact statements, the U.S. Department of Interior approved the Cape Wind project. Project opponents then filed three complaints in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.
The complaints, which were ultimately consolidated, challenged approval of the project by various federal agencies and alleged violations of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the Endangered Species Act, the Migratory Birds Treaty Act, the National Historic Preservation Act, the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, and the Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation Act of 2006.
Cape Wind intervened in the actions as a defendant-intervenor. Because of the project’s clean energy significance, NRDC attorneys (including me), joined by the New England-based Conservation Law Foundation and Mass Audubon, the state’s leading wildlife protection organization, filed two “friend of the court” briefs in support of the project.
In March 2014, U.S. District Court Judge Reggie Walton issued an 88-page decision granting summary judgment to the defendants, rejecting the bulk of opponents’ challenges to the federal government’s 2010 approval of the project. The court dismissed outright a host of claims that related to the government’s environmental review of the project under the National Environmental Policy Act and to the Coast Guard’s review of navigation issues under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act.
The court remanded two limited issues back to the federal agencies. First, it directed the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) to make an independent determination about whether a potential operational adjustment for the project was a “reasonable and prudent measure”. The court explained that it was unable to tell, based on the record, whether the Fish & Wildlife Service had made an independent determination or had adopted a position taken by a sister agency.
Second, the court directed the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to issue an incidental take permit covering right whales. While the NMFS biological opinion stated that the project “was not likely to adversely affect right whales” and that “incidental take was not likely to occur,” the court found that the opinion did not state that an incidental take would not occur or determine the volume of any potential take.
After the court’s decision, the two federal agencies complied with the district court’s instructions. FWS issued its independent determination with respect to the potential operational adjustment. NMFS amended the incidental take opinion to state that no take of right whales was anticipated, and thus the incidental take amount for this species could be set at zero.
However, that did not end the matter. As the district court noted in its September 12, 2014 order, “history should have forewarned that any attempt to bring this [protracted] litigation to an expeditious conclusion would prove difficult.” And as expected, the plaintiffs filed a supplemental complaint challenging the two agencies’ actions on remand.
On November 18, 2014, the district court dismissed the plaintiffs’ supplemental complaint. The court made short work of the claims, finding them all to be barred – some because they had been previously waived or abandoned and some because the Court had previously considered and rejected them. Indeed, the court noted that some of the claims were “difficult to understand.” With that decision, this chapter in the long string of legal challenges was concluded, at the district court level at least. The plaintiffs filed a notice of appeal yesterday.
Meanwhile, the Cape Wind project continues to move forward. In July, the U.S. Department of Energy issued a conditional loan guarantee commitment for the project, the first step toward securing a $150 million loan guarantee. In August, the project selected its lead construction contractors. Construction is expected to proceed in 2015.
And Cape Wind’s example has spurred forward movement in the U.S. offshore wind industry. Currently, there are some fourteen offshore wind projects in an advanced stage of development along the East Coast and elsewhere, representing 4.9 gigawatts of potential renewable electricity capacity. Despite the protracted litigation, it’s my hope that Cape Wind, buoyed by its legal victories, will herald the start of a new renewable energy industry that will fully and sustainably tap into the United States’ huge offshore wind resource.
Tags: offshore wind, renewable energy, permitting, Cape Wind
Energy | Federal | Governmental Policy | Litigation | Renewable