SACRAMENTO – Today, the White House announced California joined a crucial effort to accelerate offshore wind development across the country. California signed onto the 13-state Federal-State Offshore Wind Implementation Partnership – adding the West Coast to the regions represented by the partnership.
The Partnership is designed to fast-track efforts to bring cleaner and cheaper energy to Americans, create good paying jobs and build an American supply chain for offshore wind.
What Governor Gavin Newsom said: “We’re in the midst of a clean energy revolution, and ramping up the development of offshore wind energy will help move our state off dirty fossil fuels. Thanks to the leadership of the Biden-Harris Administration, offshore wind energy has gone from a distant pipedream to a burgeoning reality. With this new federal Partnership, California will continue spearheading efforts to bring offshore wind energy to the West Coast while creating thousands of good jobs and tackling the climate crisis.”
California has set ambitious offshore wind capacity planning goals of 2-5 gigawatts (GW) by 2030 and 25 GW by 2045. In December, the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) hosted the first-ever auction of offshore wind leases on the Outer Continental Shelf off the central and northern coasts of California, as well as the first U.S. sale in support of commercial offshore wind energy projects.