FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Lisa Linowes (603) 838-6588 lisa@saverightwhales.org
Save Right Whales Coalition Files Supreme Court Brief Challenging BOEM’s Unlawful Offshore Wind Approvals
NEW HAMPSHIRE (April 14) — The Save Right Whales Coalition (SRWC) has filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court urging the Court to review two cases challenging the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s (BOEM) approval of the Vineyard Wind 1 offshore wind project. The brief argues that BOEM unlawfully reinterpreted the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA) to expand its discretionary authority and bypass statutory protections for ocean users and marine ecosystems.
“Congress imposed clear, enforceable limits on BOEM’s authority,” said Lisa Linowes a spokesperson for SRWC. “Rather than following the law, BOEM reshaped it to serve policy objectives — without public input or congressional approval.”
Key Points from the Amicus Brief:
- Improper Balancing of Mandatory Protections: BOEM reinterpreted OCSLA § 8(p)(4), which requires the agency to “ensure” compliance with twelve independent statutory safeguards — including protections for navigation, fishing, and the environment — by introducing a balancing framework that treats these protections as negotiable.
- Textual Revision to Expand Authority: To support this reinterpretation, BOEM also modified a key provision of OCSLA (§ 8(p)(4)(I)) by repositioning a parenthetical phrase (“as determined by the Secretary”) in a way that artificially broadened the agency’s discretion over what qualifies as “reasonable uses” of the outer continental shelf and what level of interference is permissible — a subtle but powerful change that had the effect of rewriting the statute through guidance rather than legislation.
- Avoidance of Formal Rulemaking: In April 2021, BOEM issued a memorandum setting forth its new interpretation of the statute, which it then applied to approve Vineyard Wind 1 and ten other offshore wind projects. Despite immediately implementing this revised framework, BOEM waited three years to begin the formal rulemaking process required by the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), thereby denying stakeholders the opportunity for notice-and-comment participation.
- Unlawful Substitution of Compensation for Prevention: Rather than ensuring that offshore development avoids interfering with reasonable ocean uses — as the statute demands — BOEM relied on compensatory mitigation such as developer-funded payments or offsets. The brief argues that this approach replaces legal compliance with after-the-fact financial remedies, in direct conflict with Congress’s mandate to prevent interference. In a January 2025 planning document, BOEM conceded “There are no existing Federal regulations that require compensation for economic loss from displacement attributed to offshore wind energy installations.”
“This is a revealing admission,” said Linowes. “BOEM is approving projects it knows will harm fishermen and other ocean users, while relying on voluntary, developer-funded payments that have no basis in law. Compensation is not prevention — and it’s not a substitute for statutory compliance.”
Why This Case Matters
OCSLA § 8(p)(4) requires BOEM to ensure offshore wind projects comply with multiple statutory safeguards, including protecting existing ocean uses. The APA prohibits agencies from adopting binding rules or new interpretations without public rulemaking. The SRWC brief contends that BOEM’s failure to follow these legal obligations reflects a pattern of administrative overreach, enabled by improper judicial deference.
“If left unchecked BOEM’s conduct would allow agencies to bypass Congress by issuing internal memos and shifting statutory meaning without transparency or accountability,” Linowes said.
View the brief: https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/24/24-971/355222/20250409220626080_24- 966%2024-971%20Brief%20of%20Amicus.pdf
US Supreme Court Docket:
https://www.supremecourt.gov/search.aspx?filename=/docket/docketfiles/html/public/24-971.html
The Save Right Whales Coalition (https://saverightwhales.org/) is a broad alliance of scientists, fishermen, environmental advocates, and community groups committed to protecting endangered marine species and defending the lawful use of ocean resources.
Did BOEM Break the Law to Approve Offshore Wind?
https://saverightwhales.org/media/did-boem-break-the-law-to-approve-offshore-wind
Photo by Tim Schröer on Unsplash
This is only one of many instances of the fanatical push to phase out traditional fuels like oil and coal in favor of supposedly ”sustainable” power sources like wind power, tidal power, hydropower, solar power, etc., all of which come with their own forms of environmental damage, in most cases worse than that from the more traditional forms of power generation.
There has been a huge effort for the past 35 years or so to turn public opinion against fossil fuels and thereby justify allegedly safer, cleaner, and greener forms of energy production. Most of the environmental movement fell for the ”greenhouses gases” propaganda and many are now starting to see the disasterous reults as alternative methods are being allowed as a response. It is long past time to put away the dangerously simplistic nonsense of the ”greenhouse gases” theory that justifies these highly destructive alternatives. The mainstream environmentalists need to see that new power production projects like this one are the inevitable end result of the media campaign against fossil fuels.
There certainly IS a climate breakdown going on, and it certainly IS due to human industrialization of this planet, but it has little or nothing to do with fossil fuels and eliminating fossil fuels would not make any difference to the climate. That cannot be said too many times or too loudly. Unless the ”greenhouse gases = equals climate breakdown” hypothesis is confronted and dismissed more and more destructive power projects will keep being permited by bamboozeled authorities who have fallen for the anti-fossil fuels campaign and have been made to think anything that does not emmit CO2 is an improvement on anything that does. .
Extracting and burning fossil fuels, aka industrial society, is war against the Earth. Anyone who doesn’t see that isn’t really an environmentalist. I don’t know wbat you’re doing on this site. The other sources of artificial energy, like the wind project discussed here are also harmful, but we need oppose all of it.
And while you are opposing all of it, what is going to happen in the real world? The choices are either stick with fossil fuels or change to other fuel sources. There is no realistic possibility of simply abandoning all forms of fuel and returning to some hypothetical earlier stage of culture where humans, now numbering 8 BILLIONS, lived in harmony with nature.
The realistic choices are fossil fuels or some mix of other fuel sources. And of those, the most probable one is nuclear. And that is by far the worst. So I advocate fossil fuels as the least harmful option.