Contact Information
Permitting Council Press Office (media@permitting.gov)

WASHINGTON (August 1, 2024) – The Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council (Permitting Council) is pleased to announce that New England Wind is the latest project to complete all required federal environmental permitting review and authorizations with FAST-41 permitting assistance. The $3 billion project is expected to provide clean, renewable energy to more than 900,000 homes in the northeast.

“New England Wind is the sixth offshore wind project to complete the FAST-41 program, and I could not be more pleased with our progress in this sector,” said Eric Beightel, Permitting Council Executive Director. “With every offshore wind project that completes FAST-41, we are building best practices and expertise that will improve the predictability, transparency and accountability of all offshore wind projects in our portfolio. This expertise is proving impactful and will assist the Biden-Harris administration in achieving its goal to deploy 30 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind in the United States by 2030.”

Comprising two wind energy projects totaling 129 wind turbine generators, New England Wind is expected to produce up to 2,600 megawatts of renewable energy, enough to power at least 900,000 homes each year. The utility scale offshore wind farm is located 20 nautical miles (nm) south of Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts and 24 nautical miles southwest of Nantucket, Massachusetts. 

The Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) served as the FAST-41 lead for the project. 

“The Biden-Harris administration is committed to advancing offshore wind energy projects like New England Wind to create jobs, drive economic growth, and cut harmful climate pollution,” said BOEM Director Elizabeth Klein. “We are proud to announce BOEM’s final approval of the New England Wind projects. They represent a major milestone in our efforts to expand clean energy production and combat climate change.”  
 
Learn more about the New England Wind project at permitting.gov. 

About the Permitting Council and FAST-41 

Established in 2015 by Title 41 of the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act (FAST-41) and made permanent in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the Permitting Council is a federal agency charged with improving the transparency, predictability, and accountability of the federal environmental review and authorization process for certain critical infrastructure projects. The Permitting Council is comprised of the Permitting Council Executive Director, who serves as the Council Chair; the deputy secretary-level designees of 13 federal agencies (including the Departments of Agriculture, Army, Commerce, Interior, Energy, Transportation, Defense, Homeland Security, and Housing and Urban Development, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation), the Chair of the Council on Environmental Quality and the Director of the Office of Management and Budget. 

The Permitting Council coordinates federal environmental reviews and authorizations for projects that seek and qualify for FAST-41 coverage. FAST-41 covered projects are entitled to comprehensive permitting timetables and transparent, collaborative management of those timetables on the Federal Permitting Dashboard. FAST-41 covered projects may be in the renewable or conventional energy production, electricity transmission, energy storage, surface transportation, aviation, ports and waterways, water resources, broadband, pipelines, manufacturing, mining, carbon capture, semiconductors, artificial intelligence and machine learning, high-performance computing and advanced computer hardware and software, quantum information science and technology, data storage and data management, and cybersecurity sectors. 

The Permitting Council also serves as a federal center for permitting excellence, supporting federal efforts to improve infrastructure permitting including and beyond FAST-41 covered projects to the extent authorized by law, including activities that promote or provide for the efficient, timely, and predictable completion of environmental reviews and authorizations for federally-authorized infrastructure projects.