MAINE PUBLIC • January 25, 2021
Gov. Janet Mills is calling for a 10-year moratorium on new ocean-based wind-energy projects in state waters — and she’s promising a modest slowdown of a state-led effort to site 12 turbines in federal waters. The moves come after concerns raised by the state’s commercial fishing industry. Mills announced in November the state would seek to place a “research array” of 12 floating wind turbines off Maine’s coast in federal waters, at least 20 miles offshore. Soon after, her administration was contacted by a California developer interested in siting a wind farm within state-managed waters. But Mills now is asking the Legislature to take any inshore wind development off the table for 10 years. Dan Burgess, who directs Mills’ energy office says the administration wants to protect the inshore waters where most Maine fishermen operate.