Sierra Club presses NJ governor to show leadership on offshore wind

Michael Copley 1 October 2013

The Sierra Club is pressing New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie to renew his support for offshore wind after a poll found that 75% of residents favor building turbines off the state's coast. In 2010, Christie signed the Offshore Wind Economic Development Act, saying his administration would maintain a "strong commitment to utilizing energy ... in our efforts to make our state a home for growth, as well as a national leader in the windpower movement." Since that time, though, Christie has failed to move New Jersey's offshore wind industry forward, the Sierra Club said Sept. 30. The group is now turning to billboards, newspaper advertisements and the Internet to pressure Christie and "make sure that the residents of New Jersey are aware that we have this possibility and it has stalled," a Sierra Club volunteer said during a conference call with reporters. "The primary issue is that since the Offshore Wind Economic Development Act was passed more than three years ago, almost nothing has happened," Sierra Club spokeswoman Kim Teplitzky said. "The holdup has been with New Jersey's Board of Public Utilities, which needs to set financing rules so that the state can actually get to the business of sourcing bids and building offshore wind." "What Gov. Christie needs to do is make sure that his administration and his agencies are actually implementing his

law by finalizing these rules," Teplitzky added. Sierra Club's lobbying push coincides with the release of a Monmouth University poll that found a majority of New Jersey residents favor offshore wind development and want Christie to make the issue "a priority for his administration." Of the 783 residents surveyed by telephone between Sept. 6 and Sept. 10, 66% said offshore wind power would help New Jersey's economy. Seventy-five percent favor building turbines off the state's coast, with 46% strongly supporting it and 29% "somewhat" in favor of the idea, compared to 13% who oppose offshore wind development. The poll, which has a potential sampling error of plus or minus 3.5%, found no significant variations in opinion by partisan affiliation. "For those of us who read a lot of public polling, we know this type of intense agreement is quite noteworthy," Grace McRae, a polling and research strategist for the Sierra Club, said during the conference call. "We see impressive majority support among registered voters, residents in shore counties and residents in coastal towns." Christie's office referred requests for comment to the Board of Public Utilities. A BPU spokesman said in an email that board staff met with offshore wind stakeholders and developers in early 2013 to present a straw proposal for renewable energy credits. Industry comments on the proposal were received in the spring and summer, the spokesman said, and BPU staff is now working on a formal proposal. 4 lease approvals Activity has been building around the offshore wind industry. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management published a request for interest Sept. 30 for a commercial wind lease off the Oregon coast. To date, federal regulators have issued four lease

approvals on the Atlantic Coast, and the BOEM said competitive auctions for wind energy areas offshore Maryland, New Jersey and Massachusetts will be held over the next year. News of a planned competitive auction for wind energy areas off New Jersey is "great," Teplitzky said in an email. But Christie "must finalize his own offshore wind program before companies will seriously consider building wind off the Jersey Shore," she said. "What company is going to want a lease for waters if they don't have the support of the state first?" In the most recent competitive lease sale Sept. 4, Dominion Resources Inc. subsidiary Dominion Virginia Power was declared the provisional winner of the rights to develop an offshore wind farm near Virginia Beach. It was the second competitive lease sale for renewable energy on the Outer Continental Shelf the BOEM has issued two lease approvals through a noncompetitive process and came a month after Deepwater Wind won the rights to develop a wind farm off the Rhode Island coast. In New Jersey, Michele Cooklin, a volunteer with the Sierra Club, underlined the economic boost that she said offshore wind would bring to the state. "The governor is a very smart man. He understands our economy. And he must understand how beneficial the development of offshore wind energy would be to the New Jersey economy," Cooklin said. "We're hoping that Gov. Christie will step up and be a strong leader and bring offshore wind to New Jersey."
Dominion Virginia Power's legal operating name is Virginia Electric and Power Co.