Why Should Delaware Care?
Electricity rates have skyrocketed in the mid-Atlantic region since COVID, but a proposed offshore wind farm near Ocean City, Md., has sparked widespread opposition from many Sussex County businesses and residents. It has led to pushback on multiple fronts, including over several permits that Delaware granted to the company planning the renewable energy project.
Local opponents of a plan to build an offshore wind farm about 15 miles from the Delmarva Coast might have one last chance to interrupt the controversial project – and those hopes are pinned to an obscure administrative board.
On Tuesday, Delaware’s Environmental Appeals Board ruled that a legal challenge to several environmental permit approvals needed by the renewable energy project can move forward.
The company behind the wind farm – US Wind – says that the more than 100 offshore turbines it proposes could produce up to 2 gigawatts of electricity, or enough to power about hundreds of thousands of homes.
But the appeal, filed by the Caesar Rodney Institute, the town of Fenwick Island, and others, argues that regulators erred in approving the series of permits for the project by combining reviews and public hearing processes, among other claims. The Caesar Rodney Institute, a conservative, Delaware-based think tank has long led the local opposition to offshore wind projects, while Fenwick Island, and its mayor, Natalie Magdeburger, have been among the most vocal critics.
Among the permits being challenged is one that allows US Wind to connect cables underground at 3Rs Beach, and then under the Indian River Bay to a power plant substation, near Millsboro.
The appeal may be one of the last stands on the local front for US Wind’s opponents, as the state legislature works toward overturning a rejection from Sussex County of a land-use permit that US Wind needs to build an onshore substation for the wind farm.
Hours after the appeals arguments took place Tuesday, the Delaware Senate debated, then passed Senate Bill 159, which would push through the land use permit for US Wind’s substation.
It now heads to the House for consideration.
The bill’s sponsor, Sen. Stephanie Hansen (D-Middletown), told Spotlight Delaware that the opposition to the permit amounts to a “culture war on renewable energy.” She also said that waiting for appeals to go through the legal process “really puts the project at risk” of losing contractors needed for construction work.
But Jane Brady, an attorney who represents the Caesar Rodney Institute and other groups appealing US Wind’s permit, called Hansen’s bill flawed and said if it passes she anticipates “that there will be a challenge to it.”
Asked about her appeal of US Wind’s permits, Brady said her clients still face additional challenges from state environmental regulators, including on whether her clients have standing to bring the case.
“We’re still litigating whether we’re allowed to litigate,” said Brady, who previously served as a state judge, Delaware’s attorney general, and later as the chair of the Delaware Republican Party.
Brady is also representing another appeal in front of the Environmental Appeals Board on behalf of South Bethany homeowner Edward Bintz, who is challenging the state’s review of the US Wind project for a federal consistency determination. Arguments in that case are still ongoing.
Delaware lawmakers established the seven-member, quasi-judicial Environmental Appeals Board in 1973 to give members of the community a way to challenge decisions made by the secretary of Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control.
In some cases, those appeals are thrown out on technicalities — such as whether someone has “standing” to bring a complaint, meaning they can prove that they are directly harmed by a decision — before any actual arguments can be made.
US Wind and Delaware officials in January signed a 25-year agreement valued at hundreds of millions in investments into Delaware’s power grid. Adding offshore wind would also help meet the state’s statutory obligation to meet “net zero” emissions targets by 2050.