Green Oceans v. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management

A lawsuit filed in the federal district court for the District of Columbia challenged the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s (BOEM’s) approvals of the Sunrise Wind offshore wind project. The project is to be located on the Outer Continental Shelf to the south of Massachusetts. Plaintiffs included a Rhode Island nonprofit corporation that describes its core purpose as “protecting ocean biodiversity and health”; commercial and recreational fishermen; a nonprofit “alliance of the wild harvesters of the waters off of New England”; owners of historic oceanfront properties; and federally recognized Tribes. The plaintiffs asserted claims under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA), the National Historic Preservation Act, and the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). Under OCSLA, the plaintiffs claimed that BOEM approved the project in 2024 based on an erroneous interpretation of OCSLA Section 8(p)(4) that was withdrawn in 2025. The plaintiffs claimed that Section 8(p)(4) imposes mandatory duties on BOEM to ensure that each of its criteria are satisfied without detriment to other criteria rather than allowing BOEM “rationally balance” the Section 8(p)(4) criteria as was done in the 2024 approvals. The complaint alleged that the “rationally balance” interpretation allowed BOEM to approve a project that failed to address national security, environmental, and other issues “because each of those failures could be weighed against the project’s energy benefits and found acceptable.” The plaintiffs asserted that reevaluation based on the 2025 interpretation was required. Under NEPA, the plaintiffs’ arguments included that BOEM failed to justify “foundational” assumptions, including assumptions that the Sunrise Wind project would meaningfully address climate change (an assumption that the complaint alleged was contradicted by the final environmental impact statement) and the assumption in the No Action Alternative that electricity the project would have generated would instead be generated by fossil fuels. The plaintiffs contended that New York and Massachusetts climate change laws impose greenhouse gas emissions reduction obligations and that nothing in the record established that New York would rely on fossil fuels rather than on nuclear power or renewable energy sources other than Sunrise Wind. The plaintiffs requested that the court either vacate the 2024 approval or remand for consideration of the project under the OCSLA interpretation adopted in 2025.