RISEE Act -- how does this affect the Great Lakes specifically? Does it apply to offshore Michigan windmills? Would it benefit a Great Lakes state financially?
This is a great question.
Primarily the Great Lakes would benefit, at least in the short term, from the bill because it provides a dedicated source of funding to the National Oceans and Coastal Security Fund (NOCSF). This fund provides grants to coastal and Great Lake communities to respond to coastal erosion and sea level rise, restore coastal habitat and make improvements to coastal infrastructure. At present this fund does not have a dedicated source of funding. The RISEE Act would direct 37.5% of offshore wind revenues and 12.5% of GOMESA revenues to the Fund.
So in essence Great Lakes communities would receive some of the revenue from offshore wind projects as well as offshore oil projects in the Gulf of Mexico.
Now regarding offshore wind development in the Great Lakes. Yes, those localities would benefit from these sorts of projects. However, the extent to which this is a significant boon for these communities remains to be seen.
At present the bulk of the investment in offshore wind development exists along the East Coast and Gulf of Mexico. Essentially the presence of ice, along with more abundant natural gas and coal resources make offshore wind projects in the Great Lakes less appealing than in the Northeast for instance. There are also regulatory concerns to be dealt with as shown recently in Ohio where the Supreme Court is expected to rule against the proposed Icebreaker wind farm in Lake Erie on the basis that the project would be damaging to migratory birds.
Things could obviously change on that front, but in the near term the NOCSF funding is the primary avenue by which Great Lakes communities would benefit from the RISEE Act.
Thanks for this, @Hardy Almes! As an update, in August, the Ohio Supreme Court gave a green light to the Icebreaker Wind Project which will construct wind turbines in Lake Erie near Cleveland.
@John Sabin
I did some research and found that the federal government does not have jurisdiction in the great lakes; i.e. the 50% of wind farm leasing money that goes to nearby coastal states does not apply in the event that wind farms are put in the great lakes.
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