Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and a couple of his aides are coming to Baltimore this afternoon to announce a "major new initiative to accelerate the responsible siting and development of wind energy projects along the Atlantic coast."
What that is exactly may have to wait for the 2 p.m. press conference at Fort McHenry. Gov. Martin O'Malley, who will also be on hand, wrote to Salazar along with Delaware's governor earlier this year appealing to the Obama administration to boost offshore wind development by pledging the federal government to buy a gigawatt of power from turbines placed off the mid-Atlantic coast.
But some are speculating that the Obama administration intends to announce plans to streamline the federal regulatory review process for approving putting wind turbines offshore. Jim Lanard, the director of the recently formed industry group, Offshore Wind Development Coalition, said not long ago that shortening the time needed to get permits was a priority.
Lanard, former executive of Deepwater Wind, an offshore developer, was quoted in the industry news site offshorewind.biz that the seven to nine years it's now projected to take to win federal approval is "far too long of a timeline to attract investors." Lanard is among those to be on hand for the announcement.
Frank Maisano, a lobbyist for wind developers, noted that Salazar had said in a speech to the American Wind Energy Association's offshore wind conference last month in Atlantic City NJ that his department plans to identify "high priority areas" for wind projects along the Atlantic coast by year's end.
The details matter, though, and one person's streamlining may mean railroading to someone who's not as blithe about the massive turbines. Maryland's move to avoid lengthy environmental reviews for land-based wind projects of 70 megawatts or less hasn't prevented some environmentalists from threatening to file suit over potential harm to endangered bats by the turbines that are about to start generating power on Backbone Mountain in Garrett County. No lawsuits have been filed to date.
Concerns also have been voiced about the potential for turbines off Maryland's coast to disrupt shipping, aviation radar and mlitary flights there - concerns state officials say they're confident can be dealt with without preventing offshore wind projects from going forward. But such discussions do take time.
(Wind turbines off English coast, September 2010, AFP/Getty)