County of Cape May v. United States

After the developer announced its intent to cease an offshore wind farm on the Atlantic Outer Continental Shelf and New Jersey vacated orders granting easements for the project, the federal district court for the District of New Jersey dismissed as moot a lawsuit challenging federal authorizations for the wind farm. The County of Cape May and other plaintiffs had argued, among other things, that the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management failed to adequately analyze the project’s impacts on greenhouse gas emissions and climate change because the analysis “focuses on partial, project-specific climate impacts in the nearby geographic area but attempts to quantify only emissions offsets from the Project, with limited qualitative descriptions of emissions generated from construction.” The court dismissed the action without prejudice.

The County of Cape May, New Jersey, and other plaintiffs filed a lawsuit in federal district court in New Jersey to challenge the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s (BOEM’s) approval of the Ocean Wind 1 Project, a 161,000-acre offshore wind farm on the Atlantic Outer Continental Shelf. The asserted claims under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), Administrative Procedure Act, Endangered Species Act, Marine Mammal Protection Act, Migratory Bird Treaty Act, Coastal Zone Management Act, National Historic Preservation Act, Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, Clean Water Act, and the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1899. In support of the plaintiffs’ NEPA claim, the complaint alleged that BOEM failed to adequately analyze the project’s impacts on greenhouse gas emissions and climate change because the analysis “focuses on partial, project-specific climate impacts in the nearby geographic area but attempts to quantify only emissions offsets from the Project, with limited qualitative descriptions of emissions generated from construction.” The complaint alleged that the defendants did not evaluate activities associated with the supply chain or eventual disposal of wind turbine components, did not compare the project’s climate impacts with alternative renewable energy projects or project locations and designs, and did not including cumulative-level analysis of climate impacts. The developer of the project filed a motion to intervene in support of the defendants. Four days later, however, the developer announced that it would cease development of the project. The plaintiffs subsequently filed their opposition to the motion to intervene, arguing that abandonment of the project defeated the developer’s grounds for intervention.