Supreme Court Declines to Review Challenge Against Offshore Wind Turbines in Cape Cod
The decision was reached after a federal agency determined that the project would not pose a threat to the North Atlantic right whale, an endangered species.
The U.S. Supreme Court denied a request from residents of Massachusetts to review a lower court’s dismissal of their challenge to federal approval of offshore wind turbines used for electricity generation.
The residents contended that a wind farm in the Cape Cod area endangered the North Atlantic right whale and that federal agencies neglected to adhere to legal requirements when evaluating the project’s environmental effects. They also claimed that the turbines were harmful to the local ecosystem.
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) operates as part of the U.S. Department of the Interior.
The federal government sanctioned the location of the first utility-scale offshore wind turbine project in the country, known as Vineyard Wind 1, situated 15 miles from the Nantucket coast. This project is owned by Avangrid and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, which operate through Vineyard Wind LLC, with Vineyard Wind 1 currently under construction, as noted in the petition.
Related Stories
The project is heralded as the initial step in the government’s initiative to construct around 30 wind turbine projects “along the Atlantic coast that, once completed, will consist of thousands of turbines across millions of acres of federally owned submerged lands.”
Vineyard Wind LLC has completed or is in the process of constructing 47 out of a total of 62 approved fixed-bottom wind turbines, each standing 853 feet above the water—nearly three times the height of the Statue of Liberty.
The petition claims that these 47 turbines are already detrimental to the environment. For instance, in July 2024, a sizable section of a 350-foot blade sheared off one of the turbines, scattering fiberglass debris across Nantucket’s beaches. Furthermore, the turbines potentially threaten the endangered North American right whale, of which only about 388 individuals remain, by disrupting their habitats and migratory paths, according to the petition.
Additionally, although federal law mandates that the government assess the “best information available” regarding a project’s potential effects on endangered or threatened species and their habitats, the BOEM and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) allegedly disregarded the “cumulative impacts of other planned projects when they authorized and approved permits for the Vineyard Wind 1 Project,” as stated in the petition.
The residents assert that the agencies responsible for leasing the water areas to wind energy firms omitted relevant data from their evaluations in order to promote offshore wind energy development.
Contrary to the residents’ claims, the First Circuit’s decision does not contravene existing rulings from the Ninth and District of Columbia Circuits, according to the brief.
The U.S. Department of Justice, which represents BOEM, opted not to comment on the recent ruling.
“We don’t have a comment,” stated Matthew Nies, a public affairs specialist at the department, to The Epoch Times on January 16.
The Epoch Times reached out to the attorney representing the residents, Nancie Marzulla of Marzulla Law in Washington, but did not receive a response before publication.
