CFACT has joined with the Heartland Institute and American Coalition for Ocean Protection in submitting a hard-hitting public comment spotlighting numerous deficiencies found the government’s draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) and demanding that federal regulators deny a request by Dominion Energy to build a massive offshore wind turbine complex off the coast of Virginia.
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), the agency charged with reviewing the matter, crafted a draft EIS that is “woefully inadequate” in addressing potential impacts to severely endangered right whales. In its zeal to push intermittent, inefficient wind energy on the nation, the Biden Administration is glossing over potentially devastating threats to the whales. This is particularly shocking to those of us used to seeing federal bureaucrats blow up insignificant threats to species to thwart development projects that are both productive and benign.
Dominion claims that it will use “mitigation” and “minimization” techniques to limit harm to the whales. What could those be? You won’t find out from the Feds, nor will you find hard estimates on what the turbines will do to the whales. The crucial information has been redacted! When CFACT requested the information in a letter direct to Dominion they demurred, and referred us back to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Mangement. How’s that for a “Catch 22?”
Without this information the public is left in the dark as to how Dominion intends to comply with the zero-kill mandate required by BOEM.
All this opaque bureaucratic nonfeasance is inconveniently occurring at a time when dead whales have been washing ashore along the eastern seaboard.
The public has a right to see and evaluate Dominion’s submissions and the Bureau of Ocean Management’s data in their entirety before any permit is issued to start construction on a wind project which will radically transform our coastal waters and could mean the end of a species of whales with less than 350 members left.
Press Release:
Groups Demand F/ederal Regulators
Reject Virginia Offshore Wind
Project to Save Right Whale
Read the press release at CFACT.org
Official comment on:
Draft Environmental Impact Statement
for the Coastal Virginia Offshore
Wind Commercial Project