NE4OSW Members in Maine Commend Draft Offshore Wind Roadmap
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: January 6, 2023
Contact:
Jennifer Delony, New England for Offshore Wind
jdelony@ne4osw.org, 603.320.7043
NE4OSW Members in Maine Commend Draft Offshore Wind Roadmap
Group calls for improvements regarding organized labor, equity in final Roadmap
AUGUSTA, Maine – January 6, 2023 – New England for Offshore Wind (@NE4OSW) coalition member Maine Conservation Voters (MCV), together with 11 other coalition members, submitted comments on Jan. 5 for the Maine Offshore Wind Draft Roadmap, supporting the effort and calling for improvements to its organized labor and equity frameworks.
“The Maine Offshore Wind Draft Roadmap is a significant achievement for the state, and we commend the Maine Governor’s Energy Office (GEO) and the Maine Offshore Wind Roadmap Advisory Committee (AC) for their work in highlighting the need for a comprehensive planning process that includes workforce and supply chain investment, a strategy for phased and collaborative procurement, and extensive environmental monitoring and mitigation,” said Kelt Wilska, Energy Justice Manager at MCV.
Signatories to the comments represent a broad-based coalition of environmental, justice, and labor organizations that strongly align with Maine’s goals for responsible offshore wind development in the Gulf of Maine.
The group encouraged the GEO and AC in the comments to revise the Roadmap to better reflect organized labor objectives, with specific focus on the importance of project labor agreements (PLAs) and labor peace agreements (LPAs) to an uninterrupted and safe development environment that benefits workers, their families, and their communities.
“MCV and our labor allies on the AC have raised this concern at multiple AC meetings, and we reiterated it in our comments because it is so important. Organized labor must be a full partner in this process, not just a stakeholder,” Wilska said. MCV is a member of both the AC and the Energy Markets and Strategies Working Group, one of four working groups that helped develop the content of the Roadmap.
The group also encouraged the GEO and AC to expand on the Draft Roadmap’s recommendations regarding equity, including calling for more references to specific environmental justice (EJ) populations, disadvantaged communities, or low-income communities and the potential benefits they can derive from offshore wind development.
While the group commended the draft Roadmap’s attention to detail on the potential impacts of offshore wind to the environment and fisheries, they asked the GEO and AC to name compensatory mitigation for adverse impacts as an essential strategy in the final Roadmap.
The Draft Roadmap represents an 18-month initiative led by the GEO that brought together constituents from state agencies, municipalities, educational institutions, advocacy organizations, industry associations, and businesses along with public input. It features five central objectives, each with its own set of strategies and actions. Each objective would help set a pathway for building an offshore wind sector in the state that creates equitable economic advantage, helps reduce carbon emissions and secure more stable energy prices, fosters innovative technologies, supports existing coastal economies, and protects wildlife and the environment.
The GEO and AC will use comments submitted on the draft to finalize the Roadmap.
The full comment letter is available here.
Signatories to the letter are:
Iron Workers Local 7
Laborers’ International Union Local 327
Maine Audubon
Maine Climate Action Now
Maine Conservation Voters
Maine Labor Climate Council
Maine State Building & Construction Trades Council
Natural Resources Council of Maine
North Atlantic Regional Council of Carpenters Local 349
North Atlantic Regional Council of Carpenters Local 352
Sierra Club Maine
Union of Concerned Scientists
About New England for Offshore Wind
New England for Offshore Wind (www.NewEnglandforOffshoreWind.org) is a broad-based coalition of businesses and associations, environmental and justice organizations, academic institutions, and labor unions committed to combatting climate change by increasing the supply of clean energy to our regional grid through more procurements of responsibly developed offshore wind. We believe that responsibly developed offshore wind is the single biggest lever we can pull to address the climate crisis while also strengthening our regional economy, protecting ratepayers, creating high quality jobs, and improving public health by reducing pollution.