The White House announced a partnership on June 23, 2022, with 11 East Coast states to accelerate the growth of the United States’ offshore wind industry. The Biden administration offered the partnership to strengthen national energy security in a time of energy instability and simultaneously pursue a clean energy future.
The fundamental goal of the partnership is to deploy 30 gigawatts of offshore wind energy by 2030, which the White House contended will be enough energy to power 10 million homes and spur $12 billion per year in private investment. This goal is a significant increase from the roughly 35,000 megawatts of offshore wind energy currently generated across the United States and reflects nearly a twofold increase in output.
Currently, the partnership includes the Departments of the Interior, Energy, Commerce and Transportation, as well as the governors of Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island. The administration seeks to expand the partnership to the Gulf Coast and the West Coast as offshore wind energy projects develop in those areas.
In the administration’s view, a key component driving the dramatic expansion in offshore wind capacity is a focus on developing the domestic supply chain necessary to support the construction, operation and maintenance of these offshore projects. In 2021, the Labor Energy Partnership announced $2.2 billion in private funding to develop nine major manufacturing facilities to produce components of the wind turbines. The partnership seeks to increase support for this type of supply chain development at the state and federal levels. Additionally, the Department of Transportation is designating the specialized installation vessels needed to construct the projects as “vessels of national interest” and prioritizing their domestic production.
If you have any questions regarding the new partnership, please contact the authors noted below.
The authors thank McGuireWoods summer associate Colin Brady for assistance preparing this article. He is not licensed to practice law.