Save Long Beach Island v. U.S. Department of Commerce

Plaintiffs challenging other federal authorizations for the Atlantic Shores project voluntarily dismissed their case without prejudice on June 16. They dismissed the case several days after the developer filed a petition with the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities seeking to terminate the project’s offshore renewable energy credits (ORECs) because the project had become “impracticable” on the existing terms in the OREC order.

A lawsuit filed in the federal district court for the District of New Jersey challenged federal authorizations for the Atlantic Shores South offshore wind project off the coast of New Jersey. The plaintiffs asserted violations of the National Environmental Policy Act, the Administrative Procedure Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the Coastal Zone Management Act, the Clean Air Act, and the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act. Their climate change-related arguments involved allegations that the final environmental impact statement failed to provide information on the project’s effect on climate change and greenhouse gas emissions changes on a regional scale. The plaintiffs also contended that the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection’s belief that the project would further the “public interest” in its Coastal Zone Management Act analysis was unsupported by evidence, “including an absence of climate change benefit.”