WASHINGTON, D.C. (NAFB) – The U.S. Interior Department is part of the Biden Administration’s effort to boost renewable energy, including offshore wind generation.

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland joined leadership of Energy, Commerce and Transportation at a White House forum Monday on the topic. The event included a commitment to establish a target to deploy 30 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2030, creating nearly 80,000 jobs.

At the forum, leaders discussed key opportunities and challenges to ensuring domestic economic and employment benefits of aggressively expanding offshore wind. Interior announced the final Wind Energy Areas in the New York Bight – an area of shallow waters between Long Island and the New Jersey coast to identify the offshore locations that appear most suitable for wind energy development.

Additionally, the department is initiating the environmental review of the third commercial scale offshore wind project by announcing a Notice of Intent to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement for Ocean Wind, LLC’s proposed project offshore New Jersey.