RISEE Act -- how does this affect the Great Lakes?
Mary Garton
92 Posts

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?

4 Replies
Hardy Almes
33 Posts
Mary,

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.
 
John Sabin
491 Posts

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.

John Sabin
491 Posts

@Philip Smith Yes. 🙂 See this forum post from 2022:


Forum help

Select a question below

CCL Community's Sitewide Forums are an easy and exciting way to interact with other members on CCL Community.  The Sitewide Forums are focused on subjects and areas of general interest to members.  Each forum consists of topics that members have posted, along with replies from other members. Some forums are divided into categories to group similar topics together. 

Any members can post a topic or reply to a topic.

The Sitewide Forums are open to the entire CCL community to create, comment on, and view online discussions.  Posts and comments should address the subject or focus of the selected forum. 

Note: Categories can only be created by community administrators.

Guidelines for posting: (also see general Community Guidelines)

  • Don’t see your question or topic? Post it.
  • Be thoughtful, considerate (nonpartisan) and complete. The more information you supply, the better the better and more engaging the conversation will be. 
  • Feel like cursing? Please don’t.
  • Ask yourself, “Would my topic post reveal sensitive or confidential information?” If so, please don't post!

Flag/report any offending comments, and then move on. In the rare instance of a comment containing a potentially credible threat, escalate that immediately to CCL.

If the Sitewide Forum has no categories, select the "Add Topic" button at the top of topics window. 

If the forum has categories, when you click on "Add Topic," a dropdown list of the categories appears. Select the desired category and then "Add Topic."
In either case this brings up a box to enter both the topic subject and topic text.

If you have questions or wish to add comments on a posted forum topic, open the post and click the blue “Add Reply” button at top. You can also click on the “Reply” link at the bottom of the original topic posting.

This opens a text box. Add your reply. You can also add documents by dragging a file into the text box. Click “Post” at the bottom of the reply window This will add your reply to other replies (if there are any), sorted by oldest on top. 

If, however, you want to reply directly to someone else’s reply, click on the “Reply” link at the bottom of their reply. 

When replying to a topic post or a topic reply it may be helpful to quote the original text, or the part that your reply is referring to. To quote a topic or reply, click on the "Quote" link at bottom of post. 

When you do this the full text of either the post or reply will be pulled into a reply text box. If desired, you can remove parts of the quoted text in order to get the portion you are interested in quoting.

You can subscribe to notifications of new postings from any of the Sitewide Forums or forum categories. To subscribe, select the green “Subscribe” button at the top of the forum. Click on dropdown arrow to select frequency of notification.

If you are already subscribed, the button will display “Unsubscribe.”  Select it to unsubscribe or select the dropdown arrow to modify frequency of notification. 

Note: If you subscribe to a Sitewide Forum, such as "Media Relations" that has categories (such as "LTEs and Op-Eds"), you will also be subscribed to all the categories. If you wish to subscribe to only one or more of the categories, unsubscribe to the parent forum and subscribe individually to desired categories.

.

If you see a topic post or reply that interests you or that you like, you can click the “Like” icon at the bottom of the topic post or the reply. This lets the poster know that the topic was helpful. It also contributes to the topic’s popularity, which influences where it is listed in the "Popular" forum tab. There are also additional reactions available for members to use. Mouseover the "Like" icon to choose one of these options: Love, Clap, Celebrate, Insightful, or Interesting.

CCL Community Guidelines

  • Discuss, ask and share
  • Be respectful
  • Respect confidentiality
  • Protect privacy

More guidelines
 

CCL Blog Policy Area Categories