The Cost of Contentiousness: A Status Report on Offshore Wind in the Eastern United States

While successful elsewhere, the offshore wind energy sector has been unable to launch off the Atlantic coast of the United States. We explore the regulatory, political, and legal factors behind the delays encountered by American offshore wind. We also provide an update on the regulatory changes that federal and state governments are adopting to overcome the barriers to the sector’s emergence. We ascribe offshore wind’s difficulties to a costly and contentious development cycle, which is due in part to a fragmented regulatory landscape and inconsistent political support. We see reasons for optimism, however, in the regulatory reforms being enacted at the state and federal levels. These reforms add clarity to the permitting and leasing process, and they offer various kinds of direct support to offshore wind energy developers.