Awarding the nation's 1st offshore wind leases

by: Jason Springer

Tue Jun 30, 2009 at 01:15:00 PM EDT

U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar on Tuesday awarded five leases to four companies who want to develop windmills along the Outer Continental Shelf. The leases allow the companies to build meteorological towers to gather information about the wind six to 18 miles offshore.

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The exploratory leases, the first of their kind ever issued by the federal government, went to Bluewater Wind New Jersey Energy; Fishermen's Energy of New Jersey; Deepwater Wind, which is doing two projects; and Bluewater Wind Delaware.

"New Jersey's Outer Continental Shelf is a resource that holds great promise for our energy independence and should be considered a haven for the clean, renewable and environmentally friendly energy that wind power provides," Gov. Jon Corzine said.

"We see this as a positive change from the Bush administration's energy plan," said Jeff Tittel, Director of the New Jersey Sierra Club. "We are moving from drill baby, drill, to wind baby, wind."