{"id":288000,"date":"2023-11-17T16:56:26","date_gmt":"2023-11-17T15:56:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=288000"},"modified":"2023-11-17T16:56:29","modified_gmt":"2023-11-17T15:56:29","slug":"coalition-files-notice-of-intent-to-sue-federal-agencies-to-stop-whale-killing-virginia-wind-project","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=288000","title":{"rendered":"Coalition Files Notice of Intent to Sue Federal Agencies to Stop Whale-killing Virginia Wind Project"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From Watts Up With That?<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and the National Marine Fisheries Service have violated federal law by finding that the Virginia Offshore Wind project will not result in the destruction of the North Atlantic right whale as a species<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, IL (November 14, 2023) \u2014 The Heartland Institute<\/a> and the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT<\/a>) announced today that they are filing with the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) a 60 Day Notice of Intent to Sue letter<\/a> for a violation of the Endangered Species Act. The violation is contained in a defective \u201cbiological opinion,\u201d which authorizes the construction of the Virginia Offshore Wind Project (VOW). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 60 Day Notice is required by the Endangered Species Act (ESA) for parties who wish to commence litigation against BOEM for failure to provide adequate protection of the North Atlantic right whale and other endangered species. The North Atlantic right whale is listed as \u201ccritically endangered\u201d by governments of both the Commonwealth of Virginia and the United States. Numerous studies by federal and environmental organizations have found that only about 350 North Atlantic right whales remain in existence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CFACT and The Heartland Institute assert that the Biological Opinion issued by the NMFS fails to consider the cumulative impact of the entire East Coast offshore wind program ordered by the Biden administration, and ignores the \u201cbest scientific information available\u201d about the endangered population of the North Atlantic right whale. The biological opinion found that the VOW would not cause a single <\/em>death of that species of whale over its 30-year projected lifetime \u2014 although it did acknowledge the wind project could result in Level B harassment. That level could, according to NMFS, result in indirect death, requiring the need for a \u201ctake\u201d permit, which authorizes the \u201charassment\u201d and potential killing of the North Atlantic right whale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe need to send a message to BOEM and NMFS that there will be legal consequences if they violate legal requirements for protection of the North Atlantic Right Whale,\u201d said <\/strong>H. Sterling Burnett, Ph.D.<\/strong><\/a>, director of the Arthur B. Robinson Center on Climate and Environmental Policy at <\/strong>The Heartland Institute<\/strong><\/a>.<\/strong> \u201cThe Biden administration\u2019s plan to industrialize the ocean along the East Coast must follow the law, and we will intervene, if necessary, to make sure that the North Atlantic right whale continues to exist as a species.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis letter officially puts BOEM on notice that CFACT is prepared to file suit in order to expose the agency\u2019s clear violation of federal law in failing to protect the North Atlantic right whale,\u201d said <\/strong>Craig Rucker<\/strong><\/a>, president of <\/strong>CFACT<\/strong><\/a>. <\/strong>\u201cBy refusing to consider the cumulative impact of the dozens of industrial offshore wind facilities, consisting of several thousand individual turbines planned for the East Coast, it adopted a piecemeal approach, which only considered each individual offshore wind project in isolation. This is clearly a ploy to artificially reduce the total impact of these projects on the North Atlantic Right Whale. This obvious violation of federal law was ignored by the oversight agencies but will not be tolerated by the courts.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBOEM has admitted that it produced noise control regulations for the North Atlantic right whale that were based on guesswork \u2014 not on the \u2018best available science\u2019 \u2014 as required by law,\u201d said <\/strong>Collister Johnson<\/strong><\/a>, senior policy adviser for <\/strong>CFACT<\/strong><\/a>.<\/strong> \u201cThey have funded ongoing studies that will finally produce information necessary to determine the noise impacts of offshore wind factories on baleen whales, such as the North Atlantic right whale. The results will not be available until 2025, at the earliest. This is a further violation of federal law, in addition to ignoring the cumulative impacts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere is a reason why Dominion Energy\u2019s stock price has declined by 50 percent over the past year,\u201d Johnson added.<\/strong> \u201cInvestors know that Dominion\u2019s wind project is a costly, risky gamble that has already driven most other East Coast wind developers to either renegotiate their utility contracts or abandon their projects altogether. If Dominion decided tomorrow to abandon this project, as it should, its stock price would improve dramatically, and a huge financial cloud hanging over its future would be removed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 60-day notice letter instructs the federal government agencies to take corrective action to remedy the alleged violations. If no corrective action is taken, the signatories of the letter are allowed to seek relief through the courts. The most likely venue for this litigation would be the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The firm of Gatzke, Dillon and Ballance has filed the letter as counsel for the CFACT and The Heartland Institute. The firm is currently representing plaintiffs in ongoing litigation against BOEM and NMFS, who are opposing construction offshore wind projects in Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Earlier<\/a> this year<\/a>, more than two dozen large dead whales washed up on the shores of New York, New Jersey, and Virginia, directly following 11 offshore sonar mapping activities conducted by wind developers. These \u201csite characterization\u201d studies use high-powered sonar pulses to determine the proper areas for placing the wind turbines. Sonar mapping has been found to interfere with the hearing capabilities of marine mammals. Environmental groups have successfully sued the Navy to restrict sonar mapping being conducted in the Pacific Ocean.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 60-day notice adds to the risks faced by Dominion Energy as it attempts to build an offshore wind generation facility that would be the largest such project of its kind in the world. Siemens Energy, which has been designated by Dominion as the supplier of the huge 14MW turbines for the project, recently announced a write down of \u20ac2.4 billion for the 3rd quarter, leading to an annual loss of \u20ac4.5 Billion, due to costly mechanical failures in its new wind turbines. The company has said its turbine failures are a \u201cquality issue\u201d which \u201cwill take years to fix<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Measured in megawatts, some 80 percent of the proposed East Coast wind projects<\/a> have either been abandoned or are in the process of trying to renegotiate their power purchase agreements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Heartland Institute<\/a> is a national nonprofit organization founded in 1984 and headquartered in Arlington Heights, Illinois. Its mission is to discover, develop, and promote free-market solutions to social and economic problems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CFACT<\/a>\u00a0is a national non-profit organization founded in 1985 and based in Washington DC which believes that the power of markets and safe, proven technologies can offer humanity practical solutions to the world\u2019s most pressing concerns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From Watts Up With That? The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and the National Marine Fisheries Service have violated federal law by finding that the Virginia Offshore Wind project will not result in the destruction of the North Atlantic right whale as a species  ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, IL (November 14, 2023) \u2014 The Heartland Institute and the Committee […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":288003,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and the National Marine Fisheries Service have violated federal law by finding that the Virginia Offshore Wind project will not result in the destruction of the North Atlantic right whale as a species\u00a0","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[691823636,691818058,691824624,691821207],"class_list":["post-288000","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-craig-rucker","tag-dead-whales","tag-industrial-offshore-wind-facilities","tag-north-atlantic-right-whale","fallback-thumbnail"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/image-415.png?fit=1300%2C732&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-1cVa","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":254485,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=254485","url_meta":{"origin":288000,"position":0},"title":"NOAA proposes hammering 208% of vanishing Right Whales","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"04\/24\/2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Okay it is a trick headline because they can only hammer 100% of the severely endangered North Atlantic Right Whale population. 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with the numbers doing so increasing at a staggering rate.","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/image-561.png?fit=1200%2C676&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/image-561.png?fit=1200%2C676&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/image-561.png?fit=1200%2C676&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/image-561.png?fit=1200%2C676&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/image-561.png?fit=1200%2C676&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":325761,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=325761","url_meta":{"origin":288000,"position":3},"title":"Breaking News: Dominion Energy Atlantic Coast Offshore Wind Project Delayed by Lawsuit Seeking to Protect Endangered Right Whale","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"05\/03\/2024","format":false,"excerpt":"Lawsuit seeks preliminary injunction to force comprehensive studies on the massive project\u2019s effect on habitat of critically endangered North Atlantic right whale Spike in whale deaths occurring at same time early stages of project got underway off Atlantic Coast","rel":"","context":"In \"Atlantic Coast Offshore Wind Project\"","block_context":{"text":"Atlantic Coast Offshore Wind Project","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?tag=atlantic-coast-offshore-wind-project"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/0judges-hammer-3d-model-blend.jpg?fit=1200%2C750&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/0judges-hammer-3d-model-blend.jpg?fit=1200%2C750&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/0judges-hammer-3d-model-blend.jpg?fit=1200%2C750&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/0judges-hammer-3d-model-blend.jpg?fit=1200%2C750&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/0judges-hammer-3d-model-blend.jpg?fit=1200%2C750&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":256010,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=256010","url_meta":{"origin":288000,"position":4},"title":"RELEASE: Save the whales coalition warns NOAA \u2014 Don\u2019t allow more harassment from wind power","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"05\/04\/2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Dominion Energy recently submitted a \u201cRequest for Rulemaking and Letter of Authorization for Taking of Marine Mammals\u201d as dead whales have been increasingly washing ashore along the Atlantic Coast. 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