A coalition of U.S. East Coast states have selected two firms to manage the Offshore Wind Fisheries Compensation Fund, a mitigation program built to compensate commercial and recreation for-hire fishers for revenue lost due to offshore wind developments.
The fund is a collaboration between the governments of 11 East Coast states – Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina – to provide financial compensation for economic loss caused by offshore wind projects along the Atlantic Coast. The states launched a competition earlier this year to select an administrator to run the new fund.
“Drawing on our experience with the first large offshore wind projects, Massachusetts recognizes the need to create a regional fund administrator for fisheries mitigation,” Undersecretary for Environment of the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy & Environmental Affairs Stephanie Cooper said. “This will simplify and streamline compensation for our fishing industries, crucial to our economy and fishers’ livelihoods. We appreciate our fellow Atlantic Coast states and fishing industries for their commitment to this effort.”
Virginia, U.S.A.-based claims resolution firm BrownGreer and London, U.K.-based global climate consultancy The Carbon Trust were selected to act as the regional fund administrator.
“We are honored by our selection with the Carbon Trust to serve the fishing communities, developers, and states participating in this innovative and historic initiative,” BrownGreer Partner Orran Brown, Jr. said in a statement. “As a neutral administrator, we are advocates not for any one stakeholder but for the best overall solutions, and we are excited to lend our experience and expertise to this critical program.”
The fund will be guided by a Design Oversight Committee (DOC) and For-Hire Committee (FHC) – both of which will have representatives for the fishing community, the states, and the offshore wind energy industry.
“It is critical to ensure that fishers are appropriately compensated for economic losses associated with offshore wind development,” Commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection Shawn M. LaTourette said in a statement. “After three years of collaboration by eleven East Coast states, the selection of a Regional Fund Administrator is a remarkable milestone in the development of a fair, equitable, and predictable approach to regional fisheries compensation, and New Jersey looks forward to the program being implemented in the near future.”
The selection comes immediately after the U.S. Department of the Interior auctioned off the first offshore wind energy leases in the Gulf of Maine in October, receiving USD 22 million (EUR 20 million) for four leases off the coasts of Massachusetts and Maine. Meanwhile, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) is asking for proposals on developing 13.4 million acres of ocean off the coast of New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina for offshore wind energy.
A fisheries compensation fund has already been established for the first offshore wind energy project on the East Coast, Vineyard Wind 1, located south of Massachusetts. In March, firms Avangrid and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners announced the launch of the Fisheries Compensatory Mitigation Program for Vineyard Wind 1, offering financial compensation to commercial fishermen negatively impacts by the project’s construction, operations, or decommissioning.
“The launch of these funds are the latest example of our commitment to working with the fishing industry to create successful programs together,” Fisheries Manager for Vineyard Offshore Crista Bank said in a statement. “In addition to these funds, we’ve also employed dozens of fishing vessels to work on different scopes of the project, a model we hope to expand as we develop projects around North America. By working together, we can power healthy communities and environments with 100 percent clean energy and the fishing industry can continue to provide healthy locally caught seafood.”
The Biden administration has held six offshore wind lease sales to date.
