Description: Challenge to the National Marine Fisheries Service’s incidental take/ harassment authorizations for offshore wind.
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Save Long Beach Island v. U.S. Department of Commerce
Case Documents:
Filing Date Type File Action Taken Summary 02/29/2024 Opinion Download Motions to dismiss granted. New Jersey Federal Court Dismissed Challenge to Incidental Take Authorizations for Offshore Wind Projects. The federal district court for the District of New Jersey dismissed a challenge brought by an environmental group and its president to the National Marine Fisheries Service’s incidental take/ harassment authorizations (ITAs) for offshore wind projects for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. The plaintiffs’ allegations included claims that the climate change benefits of offshore wind were overstated and that the defendants failed to recognize “the immense carbon sequestration capacity of great whales.” The court found that the plaintiffs failed to allege injury-in-fact and therefore lacked standing. The court also found that challenges to pending incidental take authorizations were not ripe because the pending ITAs were not final agency actions. In addition, the court found that any challenge to an expired ITA was moot. 04/04/2023 Complaint Download Complaint filed. Lawsuit Filed Asserting that Incidental Take/Harassment Authorizations for Offshore Wind Violated Marine Mammal Protection Act. The nonprofit corporation Save Long Beach Island filed a lawsuit seeking to reverse and set aside the National Marine Fisheries Service’s incidental take/ harassment authorizations, which the plaintiff alleged were issued in violation of the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, and the Administrative Procedure Act. The plaintiff alleged that the authorizations would have more than a “negligible” impact on North Atlantic Right Whale and Humpback Whale species. The plaintiff contended that offshore wind would not have the climate change mitigation benefits that the defendants claimed and that the project would only delay, not reduce, future sea level rise. The complaint further alleged that the defendants and offshore wind advocates failed to recognize “the immense carbon sequestration capacity of great whales” as well as whales’ “multiplicative effect on phytoplankton generation, which offset global CO2 production levels by an incredible 40% annually through capturing 30-50 billion metric tons of CO2 per year.”