Offshore Headwinds

Many developers signed big contracts with state governments and utilities when interest rates were low and inflation hadn’t caused, well, everything to get more expensive…

As we’ve discussed, NEPA has long delayed federally funded projects for much longer, and the American Clean Power Association reports that NEPA reviews today take 4.5 years on average and 6.5 years for transmission projects. They can sometimes exceed a decade. The industry group adds that offshore wind projects raise particular regulatory concerns and is thus advocating for offshore-specific reforms—reforms that, along with the broader ones, remain stalled in Congress despite bipartisan support…

As R Street’s Devin Hartman notes, recent Biden administration regulatory reforms will help unstick things a little, but the “most critical” moves require legislative action and thus remain untouched. As a result, he laments, “clean energy continues to be a kinked regulatory hose. Subsidies merely increase the pressure. Predictably, capital markets see a ‘dislocation between policy intent and current investment,’ causing worse bottlenecks and energy market dysfunction.”