The White House is taking steps to develop wind energy in the US southeast — including a potentially problematic stretch of the Atlantic coast.
Alongside the proposal for two wind energy areas in the Gulf of Mexico, President Joe Biden directed interior secretary Deb Haaland to push forward with wind energy development in the waters stretching from North Carolina to Florida, a move law firm Mayer Brown said could run afoul of moves from his predecessor Donald Trump.
Trump, the firm said, signed a memorandum understood to have banned renewable energy development offshore the US southeast that kicked in at the start of the month.
Developing wind farms there would require a repeal of the memorandum, it said.
“At the least, while the Biden administration and Congress continue to take steps to repeal the moratorium, BOEM [Bureau of Ocean Energy Management] will likely issue a call for information and nominations to assess commercial interest in and obtain public input on potential wind energy leasing activities off these states,” a note from the firm published on Thursday said.
In a release, the Biden administration said the move would alleviate “uncertainty cast by the prior administration”.
The two wind energy areas proposed by the BOEM is 44 km south of Galveston and the other 104 km south of Lake Charles, Louisiana with the potential to provide power to 3m homes.
Mayer Brown said that was just a portion of the 30m acre call area Biden had previously designated for potential development, but it said the BOEM had prepared a draft environment assessment for the entire area, which runs from the Texas-Mexico border to the Mississippi River.
Public comment period on that document will run until 19 August.
Biden has a stated goal of developing 30 GW of wind energy by 2030.
The effort is expected to be a boon for the US maritime industry, as wind farm construction requires specialised ships, many of which would have to be constructed in the US to meet Jones Act specifications.
