Responsible Offshore Development Alliance v. U.S. Department of the Interior

The federal district court for the District of Massachusetts rejected challenges to federal agencies’ and officials’ actions in connection with the approval of a wind energy project off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket, Massachusetts. With respect to the National Environmental Policy Act claims—including failure to consider climate change impacts—of an alliance representing commercial fishing interests, the court found that the alliance did not have statutory standing because it asserted only economic injuries.

The federal district court for the District of Columbia granted federal defendants’ motion to transfer lawsuits challenging the Vineyard Wind offshore wind-turbine project to the District of Massachusetts. The court found that the lawsuit could properly have been brought in the District of Massachusetts because much of the federal agency work at issue occurred in regional offices in Massachusetts and because more than 60 of the vessels and businesses that were members of a plaintiff organization that opposed transfer appeared to be located in Massachusetts. The court further found that two of the public interest factors—the interest in having local controversies decided locally and judicial economy—favored transfer due to parallel litigation already pending in the District of Massachusetts and the local impacts of the project. In addition, the court found that two private interest factors (where the case arose and the defendants’ forum choice) weighed in favor of transfer, while the plaintiffs’ forum choice weighed weakly against transfer and other private interest factors were neutral.