The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) invites the public to comment on a regional environmental analysis of potential mitigation measures on future development activities for five offshore wind lease areas off California’s central and north coasts.
The Notice of Availability (NOA) for the California Draft Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) has been published in the Federal Register on 14 November 2024, initiating a 90-day comment period. BOEM estimates that full development of these leases, totalling over 373,268 acres, has the potential to produce over 4.6 GW of offshore wind energy.
BOEM decided to take this additional step to complete a PEIS because of the relatively close proximity of the five lease areas and the timing of when BOEM expects to receive future project plans for review.
The Draft PEIS analyses programmatic avoidance, minimisation, mitigation, and monitoring measures that BOEM may require as conditions of its approval for any future proposed offshore wind projects in California.
This new regional approach is an evolution of BOEM’s process to help ensure timely decisions that advance offshore wind energy development while safeguarding the ocean environment and marine life and reducing conflicts with other ocean uses.
Additional environmental analyses specific to each proposed wind energy project will build off this programmatic review once BOEM receives individual proposed project plans from the existing leaseholders.
