Offshore Wind Worldwide Regulatory Framework in Selected Countries 5th Edition 2024 - Flipbook - Page 357
Offshore Wind Worldwide 2024
III. Regulatory Permits and
Revenues
A. The federal role in permitting
EPAct 2005 amended the Outer Continental
Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA), to vest the Secretary of Interior with the authority to grant
easements, leases, and rights-of-way for
renewable energy-related activities offshore.
The Secretary implements these responsibilities through BOEM. Another agency in
Interior, the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) is charged with
overseeing facility design, fabrication, installation, safety management systems and oil
spill response plans; and enforcing operational safety through inspections, incident
reporting, and investigations. Other permits
and authorizations are required from, for
example, the Army Corps of Engineers, the
National Marine Fisheries Service, the Fish
and Wildlife Service, the Environmental
Protection Agency, and the Federal Aviation
Administration.15 To ensure a cohesive permitting process, the Secretary of the Interior
is directed to consult with other agencies
when granting permits to perform activities
under the OCSLA.
B. The regulatory process under BOEM
The regulatory process is divided into four
phases: Planning and Analysis, Leasing, Site
Assessment and Construction and Operations.16 In the first phase, BOEM solicits
information through a “Call for Information
and Nominations.” It then identifies areas
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offshore that would best suit wind energy development, or Wind Energy Areas
(WEAs), and processes applications for lease
issuance.17 In this phase, BOEM conducts a
programmatic level environmental review of
the WEAs, which contemplates the issuance
of leases.
In the second phase, a lease can be issued
through either a competitive and non¬competitive process, depending on whether
there is competitive interest. In the competitive lease process, BOEM conducts a lease
sale for potential lessees to bid against one
another. Once the winning bidder obtains
a lease, it can begin developing plans for
the project. The third phase requires that
a lessee completes a Site Assessment Plan
(SAP), which must be approved by BOEM.
The SAP includes information on how the
lessee intends to “conduct resource assessment activities, such as the installation
of meteorological towers or buoys, and
technology testing during the site assessment phase.” Once the lessee submits a SAP,
BOEM conducts an evaluation of potential
environmental issues.
Finally, the lessee must submit a Construction and Operations Plan (COP). The COP is
a document that “describes how the lessee
will construct and operate a commercial
wind project on a commercial lease.” It
includes descriptions of construction activities and decommissioning plans. At that
point, BOEM conducts a final environmental
15 43 U.S.C. § 1337(p)(9).
16 Regulatory Framework and Guidelines | Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (boem.gov).
17 KW-CG-Broch.pdf (boem.gov).
