The certiorari petition in Nantucket Residents Against Turbines v. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, No. 24-337, asks the Supreme Court to decide whether federal agencies can, consistent with the plain language of the Endangered Species Act, exclude from their Section 7 analysis known and available science regarding impacts on an endangered species resulting from federal actions.
The petition, filed by Nancie G. Marzulla and Roger J. Marzulla of Marzulla Law, LLC, explains as follows:
Over the objections of Nantucket residents, the federal government approved the siting of the nation’s first offshore wind turbine project, Vineyard Wind 1, fifteen miles offshore of Nantucket. . . . The Vineyard Wind 1 Project is the first of the government’s “coordinated steps” to construct about 30 wind turbine projects along the Atlantic seaboard that, when built out, will have thousands of turbines covering millions of acres of federal submerged lands.
Despite the agencies’ explicit statutory duty [under Section 7 of the Endangered Species Act] to consider all “best information available,” regarding the impacts its actions might have on an endangered or threatened species and those habitats, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), did not consider the cumulative impacts of other planned projects when they authorized and issued permits to construct the Vineyard Wind 1 Project. . . . The North Atlantic Right Whale will bear the brunt of the federal government’s shortcutting of the environmental review process.
Clean Ocean Action, a nonprofit environmental organization with a mission of improving the degraded water quality of the marine waters off the New Jersey/New York coast, has filed an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to grant review. The brief explains in detail that numerous threatened and endangeed species throughout the North Atlantic would be impacted by pervasive offshore wind development. The brief contends that Section 7 environmental assessments must take into account scientific eviidence concerning the cumulative impacts of offshore wind projects.
I was pleased to advise Andrew Provence of Litwin & Provenece, LLC, on preparation of the amicus brief, which he authored, and to serve as amicus counsel of record.