Vineyard Northeast Wind is the Newest Offshore Wind Project to Gain FAST-41 Coverage
Contact Information
Permitting Council Press Office (media@permittting.gov)
WASHINGTON (October 26, 2023) – The Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council (Permitting Council) is pleased to announce that the Vineyard Northeast Wind project is now covered under the FAST-41 program. If permitted, this multi-billion dollar project is projected to produce 2600 megawatts, delivering clean energy into over 1 million homes across New England.
“The Biden-Harris administration’s Investing in America agenda has made a commitment to expanding offshore wind energy in the U.S., and this project has the potential to show what is possible when we focus our efforts on stewardship and innovation in the federal permitting process,” says Eric Beightel, Permitting Council Executive Director. “The coordination, collaboration and transparency of the FAST-41 process will provide this project with the tools it needs to traverse the federal permitting review and authorization process with efficiency and accountability.”
The Vineyard Northeast Wind project includes 160 total wind turbine generators within the lease area (OCS-A 0522) located approximately 31 miles from Nantucket, Massachusetts and 39 miles from Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. The offshore export cable will be installed within two offshore export cable corridors (OECCs)—the Massachusetts OECC and the Connecticut OECC—that connect to onshore transmission systems in Bristol County, Massachusetts and New London County, Connecticut.
The Permitting Council is the central coordinating body for permitting offshore wind energy in the United States. The agency is also a key implementing agent of the Biden-Harris Administration’s goal to deploy 30 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind in the United States by 2030, while protecting biodiversity and promoting ocean co-use. The Council portfolio currently includes a significant number of offshore wind projects, with a total of 16 covered offshore wind projects making up over 52 percent of the FAST-41 portfolio. These projects are projected to produce over 28 gigawatts of energy.
The Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management is the lead agency for the Vineyard Northeast Wind project. To learn more, visit the Permitting Dashboard.
About the Permitting Council and FAST-41
Established in 2015 by Title 41 of the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act (FAST-41) and made permanent in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the Permitting Council is a unique federal agency charged with improving the transparency and predictability of the federal environmental review and authorization process for certain critical infrastructure projects. The Permitting Council is comprised of the Permitting Council Executive Director, who serves as the Council Chair; 13 federal agency Council members (including deputy secretary-level designees of the Secretaries of Agriculture, Army, Commerce, Interior, Energy, Transportation, Defense, Homeland Security, and Housing and Urban Development, the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Chairs of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation); and the Chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality and the Director of the Office of Management and Budget.
The Permitting Council coordinates federal environmental reviews and authorizations for projects that seek and qualify for FAST-41 coverage. FAST-41 covered projects are entitled to comprehensive permitting timetables and transparent, collaborative management of those timetables on the Federal Permitting Dashboard. FAST-41 covered projects may be in the renewable or conventional energy production, electricity transmission, energy storage, surface transportation, aviation, ports and waterways, water resource, broadband, pipelines, manufacturing, mining, carbon capture, semiconductors, artificial intelligence and machine learning, high-performance computing and advanced computer hardware and software, quantum information science and technology, data storage and data management, and cybersecurity sectors. The Permitting Council also serves as a federal center for permitting excellence, supporting federal efforts to improve infrastructure permitting including and beyond FAST-41 covered projects to the extent authorized by law, including activities that promote or provide for the efficient, timely, and predictable completion of environmental reviews and authorizations for federally-authorized infrastructure projects.
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Last Updated: Thursday, October 26, 2023