Interior eyes faster offshore wind project permitting

The Interior Department’s top offshore-energy regulator wants to cut red tape for developers seeking to build the first group of wind farms off the Atlantic Coast.

“Everyone agrees that the current process for permitting wind projects, Atlantic wind projects in particular, it is too slow, it is too cumbersome, it takes too long,” said Michael Bromwich, head of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, in a briefing Tuesday.

“We are going to devote a lot of time and attention to seeing whether we can shorten the process without dropping any of the significant and important environmental safeguards,” he added at the briefing hosted by Platts, an energy news service.

Companies including NRG Bluewater Wind are planning projects off the coasts of Delaware, New Jersey and other states. Bromwich said a revised process will be rolled out in the “not-too-distant future.”

Bromwich acknowledged he has not yet been able to devote as much time to offshore renewables as he would like. “I hope that is going to change,” he said.

Bromwich, a former Justice Department official, was brought aboard Interior largely to overhaul offshore drilling oversight and rules in the wake of the BP oil spill.

He spoke right before Google and other companies rolled out plans to build a 350-mile underwater transmission “backbone” for offshore wind in the mid-Atlantic.

Bromwich called the project — which would cost billions of dollars if built — a “very promising and exciting development” and said he hopes to speak with the developers in the near future.