The move by the Interior Department comes after ACK for Whales lawsuit

The U.S. Department of Interior will ask a federal court to remand the pending challenge to the New England Wind project so that the government can review the badly flawed process that allowed the project’s permits to be granted. The local, independent and non-partisan environmental group ACK for Whales said today that the government also seeks to cancel the project’s approvals entirely.

Interior’s move comes in a federal case brought earlier this year by the independent and non-partisan environmental grassroots group ACK For Whales, the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head / Aquinnah, Green Oceans, a coalition of charter fishing groups and seven individuals.

The suit alleged that the Departments of Interior and Commerce and their sub-agencies violated the law when they approved the Construction and Operations Plan (COP) for the offshore wind New England 1 and 2 projects.

The plaintiffs argue that in approving the two projects, Interior and Commerce, National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) and Bureau of Ocean Management (BOEM) violated multiple federal laws, including the Marine Mammal Protection, Endangered Species, Outer Continental Shelf Lands, National Historic Preservation and Administrative Procedures Acts.

The environmental groups and tribe are joined as plaintiffs by the Rhode Island Party and Charter Boat Association, Cape Cod Charter Boat Association, Connecticut Charter Boat Association, and Montauk Boatmen and Captain’s Association, as well as Capt. Buddy Vanderhoop, Nantucket lobsterman Danny Pronk, Nantucket pilot and fish-spotter Douglas Lindley, Nantucketers Steven and Sharyl Kohler, ACK for Whales President Vallorie Oliver and Board Members Amy DiSibio and Veronica Bonnet.

“The government was so desperate to rush these projects that it cut corners and violated the law and didn’t care if it trampled on the Wampanoag sacred beliefs and rites, hurt the charter boat, fishing and lobster industries or wiped out the Right Whales,” said Oliver. “The only thing that mattered was to get these environmentally destructive turbines built, costs to the rest of us be damned.”

Plaintiffs’ attorney Thomas Stavola Jr., Esq., said that the government’s “intent to seek remand and cancellation of the New England Wind approval signifies a critical inflection point: the federal agencies are now recognizing what Plaintiffs have long argued—that the project’s approvals are fatally flawed and violate numerous environmental statutes. The government’s decision to set aside these approvals is both an acknowledgment of those violations and a vindication of Plaintiffs’ rights, as they stood to suffer environmental, aesthetic, and economic harm from this project."

New England Wind 1 is a 791-megawatt project slated to begin construction later this year and deliver power to Massachusetts by 2029. New England Wind 2, a 1,000-megawatt project, does not yet have a state lined up to receive its power. The projects are two of the 11 wind farms that received all of their federal permits before President Trump took office.

The suit, filed in Washington, D.C. federal court on May 22, seeks declarative relief finding that the government violated these laws, and an injunction to stop these projects from moving forward.

In March, ACK for Whales asked the United States Environmental Protection Agency to revoke the New England 1 and 2 clean air permits because the approval process ignored air pollution caused by the projects.

About ACK for Whales

ACK for Whales (AKA Nantucket Residents Against Turbines) is a group of Nantucket community members who are concerned about the negative impacts of offshore wind development off the south shores of our beloved Island. The Massachusetts / Rhode Island wind area is bigger than the state of Rhode Island and will ultimately be occupied by more than 2,400 turbines, each taller than the John Hancock building in Boston, connected by thousands of miles of high voltage cables. There are many unanswered questions, and the permitting of these massive utility projects has happened largely out of the public eye. We provide a community group of neighbors and friends, who all love the same place.

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