Fishing Industry Pressures Maine’s Gov. Mills to Limit Offshore Wind
Duggan Flanakin
September 2, 2021
Saying she’d heard the concerns of Maine’s commercial fisheries and lobstermen, Gov. Janet Mills signed legislation permanently banning offshore wind turbines within Maine’s 3-mile-limit for the offshore waters under the state’s legal jurisdiction.
The law, signed by Mills on July 7, also creates an Offshore Wind Research Commission (OWRC) within the Governor’s Energy Office to plan and coordinate a “research array” of a dozen or so offshore turbines linked to onshore transmission facilities.
Mills has been a staunch advocate for the wind industry.
Last November she announced a plan to create the nation’s first floating offshore wind array in the Gulf of Maine. The goal, she stated, was to solidify Maine’s leadership in deep-water offshore wind and to collaborate with Maine’s fisheries, which generated over half a billion dollars in revenues even in COVID-plagued 2020, on wind industry development.
Funding for that project came from a $2 million U.S. Economic Development Agency (EDA) grant.
https://heartlanddailynews.com/2021/09/fishing-industry-pressures-maines-gov-mills-to-limit-offshore-wind/
