Today, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) Director Amanda Lefton announced a Call for Information and Nominations (Call) to assess commercial interest in potential offshore wind leasing within two areas off the Oregon coast. Together, the two areas total 1,158,400 million acres located at least 12 miles offshore Coos Bay and Brookings, respectively. Once the Call is published in the Federal Register (anticipated for April 29, 2022), the public will have 60 days to submit comments. More information on the Call and BOEM’s activities in Oregon can be found here.
Interestingly, the Call did not include the approximately 237,000 acre proposed call area off the coast of Bandon that was included in BOEM’s February 25 presentation to the Oregon Intergovernmental Renewable Energy Task Force and noted in our last blog on the topic. Nevertheless, this is a first for Oregon and an exciting development for the floating offshore wind industry. BOEM’s action today will hopefully spur the Oregon legislature to expedite action on its goal to “plan for the development” of up to 3 GW of floating offshore wind by 2030 that was set forth in H.B. 3375 last year. In order for projects to pencil, they will not only need a lease from BOEM, but a plan for selling the power; and the legislature can help with that.