Biden boosts offshore wind energy

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration is ramping up efforts to sharply increase offshore wind energy along the East Coast, announcing progress on a huge wind farm planned off the New Jersey coast and setting a goal to generate enough power to provide electricity for more than 10 million homes by 2030.

Meeting the target could create jobs for more than 44,000 workers and employ nearly 33,000 others related to offshore wind activity, the White House said Monday. The effort also would help avoid 78 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions per year, a key step in the administration's fight to slow global warming.

President Joe Biden "believes we have an enormous opportunity in front of us to not only address the threats of climate change, but use it as a chance to create millions of good-paying, union jobs that will fuel America's economic recovery,'' said White House climate adviser Gina McCarthy. "Nowhere is the scale of that opportunity clearer than for offshore wind.''

The administration's commitment to the still untapped industry "will create pathways to the middle class for people from all backgrounds and communities," she added.

Specifically, the administration said Monday it intends to prepare a formal environmental analysis for the Ocean Wind project off New Jersey, putting it in line to become the third commercial-scale offshore wind project in the U.S.

Ocean Wind, 15 miles off the coast of southern New Jersey, is projected to produce about 1,100 megawatts a year, enough to power 500,000 homes.