ELR Citation: 53 ELR 20081
No(s). 1:21-cv-11390-IT (D. Mass. May 17, 2023) (Talwani, J.)

A district court denied summary judgment for a group of landowners in a challenge to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management's (BOEM's) and NMFS' decisions approving an offshore wind energy project off the coast of Nantucket. The group argued that NMFS violated the ESA by failing to adequately consider the project's impact on North Atlantic right whales, that BOEM and NMFS violated the ESA by failing to ensure through consultation that BOEM's approval of the project's impacts would not jeopardize the right whale, and that BOEM violated NEPA by failing to take the requisite "hard look" at the consequences to right whales. The court found the group failed to demonstrate that either agency violated the ESA or NEPA in considering and issuing the 2021 biological opinion or final EIS for the project. It denied summary judgment for the group, and granted the agencies' cross-motion.