Maine seeks $456M from feds for controversial offshore wind port

AUGUSTA, Maine — The Maine Department of Transportation announced Friday that it has applied for a massive federal grant that would cover most of the cost to build an offshore wind port on Sears Island in Searsport.

It is a major step for Gov. Janet Mills in her quest to make Maine a hub for the emerging industry. The Democrat has faced criticism from fishing interests, Republicans who are generally skeptical of offshore wind development and a group of local environmentalists and tribes opposed to the location on the island that is state-owned and partially preserved.

But the port is firmly in motion after Mills flipped key legislative Democrats last month to pass a law exempting Sears Island from dune protections. The state selected the site over nearby Mack Point in February. Federal regulators have designated 2 million acres off the Maine coast for wind development, heeding calls from politicians to keep a main lobstering ground out.

It will cost $760 million to develop the port, according to the state transportation department. The grant application made this month seeks $456 million from a competitive federal fund focused on multimodal transportation. The state disclosed that it is seeking another $130 million from another federal program to complete the project scheduled to be complete in 2029.

The port would be the first purpose-built one in the U.S. accommodating floating turbines. The cost includes construction of a semi-submersible barge that would lower turbine parts into the water and prepare them for installation. It would be the first of its kind in the country as well.

“With the successful construction of the port and barge, I am confident that Maine will emerge as a key player in bolstering the growth of the offshore wind industry in the United States,” Mills wrote in a letter to U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.

Over the last two decades, the University of Maine has been developing offshore wind technology with millions of dollars in federal funding. Mills and an alliance of environmental, business and labor groups say it is vital to meeting state climate goals that include using 100 percent renewable energy by 2040 and will fuel massive investments in Maine.

Yet offshore wind has gotten more controversial the closer it has come to fruition. The Maine Lobsterman’s Association has said there should be no wind development in Maine waters. President Joe Biden’s plans to power 10 million homes nationally in this manner by 2030 will likely be trashed if he loses to former President Donald Trump in November.

At a rally this week in New Jersey, the Republican former president promised to overturn offshore wind projects on “day one” if returned to the White House, according to The Guardian .“If I were in the offshore wind industry, I would probably be pretty, pretty nervous,” a former energy official in the last Trump administration told the Washington Post .