The US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management has rescinded all designated Wind Energy Areas (WEAs) on the US Outer Continental Shelf.
The withdrawal of WEAs by BOEM removes some 3.5m acres of unleased federal waters previously planned for offshore wind development under previous President Joe Biden’s ambitious lease auction schedule.
The move comes a day after Secretary of the Interior Doug Burum announced the department would launch a new review of department policies and “identify and remove favouritism toward unreliable energy”.
The order removes areas in the Gulf of Mexico, the Gulf of Maine, the New York Bight, California, Oregon, and the Central Atlantic.
The Department of the Interior said: “By terminating these Wind Energy Areas, we are safeguarding our coastal environments and local economies from unchecked development, while ensuring our power grids are not underpinned by unreliable, subsidized energy sources.”