Conservative groups sue to stop Dominion wind farm

A nonprofit conservative watchdog group based in Falls Church filed a lawsuit Monday against Dominion Energy, the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, the U.S. Department of the Interior and other government bodies, aiming to stop construction of Dominion’s offshore wind farm expected to begin this spring 27 miles off the Virginia Beach coast.

The National Legal and Policy Center and its co-plaintiffs seek a preliminary injunction against the federal government’s approval of Dominion’s $9.8 billion, 176-turbine Commercial Virginia Offshore Wind (CVOW) project, claiming the massive wind turbines pose a risk to North American right whales under the Endangered Species Act. The lawsuit also claims that the BOEM and other agencies illegally overlooked risks to the endangered whales in approving the wind farm — while also criticizing President Joe Biden’s January 2021 executive order mandating an increase in clean energy production, including offshore wind energy.

The National Marine Fisheries Service is also named as a defendant; the lawsuit asks for a court order setting aside an opinion issued by the NMFS regarding the wind farm’s risk to the endangered whale species, part of the BOEM’s approval process.

Construction on the turbines and three offshore substations in a nearly 113,000-acre area is expected to begin in May.

Defendants in the lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, include U.S. Commerce Sec. Gina Raimondo; U.S. Interior Sec. Deb Haaland; Elizabeth Klein, the BOEM’s director; and Janet Coit, director of the NMFS. In addition to NLPC and its co-founder and chairman, Peter Flaherty, the plaintiffs are Washington, D.C.-based Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, a nonprofit organization advocating for free market solutions to environmental issues, and its founder, Craig Rucker; and Illinois-based The Heartland Institute, a libertarian and conservative think tank known for climate change denial.

“The CVOW project — during its construction, operation and decommission phases — will adversely affect the federally listed [North American right whale], which uses the waters within and near the CVOW project area for migration, feeding and other key life history events,” the complaint says, claiming that there are only 340 North American right whales in existence. The NMFS reported in 2022 that there were approximately 360 of the whales, and that since 2017, there have been more than 120 whales injured or killed by “unusual mortality event[s].”

In February 2023, a male North American right whale washed up in Virginia Beach, in which the whale was determined to have died after a blunt force injury likely caused by a collision with a vessel, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Two dead whales washed ashore in Virginia Beach earlier this month, but they were juvenile humpback whales, which are not endangered.

Dominion, which received final federal approvals to start construction in January, responded to the lawsuit with a statement: “The issues raised in this lawsuit have no merit. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management has done an extraordinarily thorough environmental review of the project and carefully considered potential impacts to marine wildlife and the environment. The overwhelming consensus of federal agencies and scientific organizations is that offshore wind does not adversely impact marine life. We’ve put in place strong environmental protections for this project, and are confident the North Atlantic right whale will be protected.”

NLPC was started in 1991 by Ken Boehm and Flaherty, and reports on ethics of public officials and corporations, as well as issuing some legal challenges. Over the years, the organization has filed election law complaints against former Democratic presidential candidate Al Sharpton, U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters and former U.S. Rep. Alan Mollohan. The group also filed a complaint with the Department of Defense’s inspector general in 2003, producing evidence that a DOD procurement officer had sold her house to a Boeing executive who was working on a tanker deal with the Pentagon, a scandal that led to the firing of Boeing’s chief financial officer, Michael M. Sears, and the procurement officer, Darleen Druyun, who also received federal prison sentences.