Pentagon issues warning about offshore wind projects, threatening Biden goals
Breanne Deppisch
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The Department of Defense is raising warnings over the Biden administration’s planned offshore wind development sites on the East Coast, threatening to imperil President Joe Biden’s goal of reaching 30 gigawatts of offshore wind power by 2030.
The DOD said Monday that its initial assessment of areas the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management has earmarked for new offshore wind development has revealed “compatibility challenges” with existing Navy and Air Force training facilities nearby.
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The areas in question include offshore areas off the coasts of North Carolina, Delaware, Virginia, and Maryland.
The Pentagon “continues to work with the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, industry, and other stakeholders to identify the best locations for development,” a DOD spokesperson told the Washington Examiner on Monday.
The Pentagon has previously described those areas as “highly problematic” to its operations and its ability to navigate around the turbines, according to Bloomberg.
The areas deemed of highest concern by the DOD span a “large portion” of potential lease areas off the coasts of Maryland and North Carolina. Other areas of concern included areas near its facilities, such as the Dare County bombing range in North Carolina and a Yorktown, Virginia, weapons station.
The Pentagon is “committed to facilitate development while protecting national security, as we have done in every call area in the Atlantic, Pacific and Gulf of Mexico,” the defense spokesperson added.
Still, its commitments are unlikely to assuage increasing concerns for wind project developers on the East Coast.
Its efforts have come under rising scrutiny in recent months, especially amid a recent uptick in whale deaths along the Atlantic Coast, which has prompted calls to halt development pending investigation temporarily.
And the Pentagon has often won out over other agencies on efforts like these.
The clash is reminiscent of 2010 when the two agencies went head to head over a proposed offshore oil leasing site near Virginia. The Pentagon’s worries helped derail the Interior’s plans, and similarly, its objections over the offshore wind locations are causing industry jitters.
The DOD said its assessment is the “first step in the process” and that it will “continue to refine the analysis and collaborate with the other stakeholders in order to promote compatible development in this location.”
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BOEM said in a separate statement that the two agencies have a “long working relationship,” noting that together, the two have “deconflicted and identified areas that have resulted in 27 leases, covering over 2.1 million acres” on the outer continental shelf.
“BOEM is currently analyzing DoD’s assessment and will take it into consideration when identifying final Wind Energy Areas,” the agency added.