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

A nonprofit corporation with members from major fishing associations, dealers, seafood processors, affiliated businesses, and fishing vessels filed a lawsuit in the federal district court for the District of Columbia challenging Bureau of Ocean Energy Management approvals for the Vineyard Wind offshore wind project off the coasts of Massachusetts and Rhode Island. The plaintiffs asserted that the federal defendants failed to comply with the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, Clean Water Act, Endangered Species Act, NEPA, Marine Mammal Protection Act, Merchant Marine Act of 1920, and Administrative Procedure Act. The complaint’s climate change-related allegations included that the EIS for the project did not sufficiently evaluate the project’s impacts on greenhouse gas emissions and climate change, including because it quantified only emissions offsets from the project and included limited information about construction emissions and no information about supply chain emissions. The complaint also alleged a failure to compare the project’s climate benefits with alternative renewable energy sources or alternative locations or designs, and that there was no “cumulative-level analysis of climate impacts (positive or negative) associated with the proposed scale of offshore wind development.” Regarding its Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act claim, the complaint alleged a violation of the “protection of the environment requirement,” including because more frequent and intense tropical storms due to climate change could lead to “catastrophic release” of oil and other contaminants from the wind turbine generators.