Sponsors
The bill accelerates U.S. offshore wind deployment, creates federal tools, jobs, and funding to support domestic supply chains and community mitigation, but does so at significant taxpayer and ratepayer cost while raising environmental, local‑control, and small‑business competitiveness risks.
Most Americans (ratepayers and communities) benefit from a major expansion of offshore wind generation that accelerates deployment of gigawatts of clean electricity, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and improving air quality over time.
Utilities, developers, and consumers gain new federal leadership and financing tools (an Offshore Power Administration and loan authority) plus coordinated transmission planning that lower barriers to build offshore grid connections and speed project delivery.
U.S. manufacturers, shipbuilders, and construction workers gain federal grants, procurement incentives, and domestic-content rules that support domestic supply chains and higher‑paying jobs in offshore wind and related industries.
Taxpayers and federal finances face meaningful new costs and risks from appropriations, new program authorizations, and loan/forgiveness exposure (multi‑million appropriations and up to $10B lending authority), increasing federal fiscal exposure.
Households and ratepayers could see higher electricity bills because added labor standards, domestic-content requirements, transmission build costs, and financing terms may raise project and integration costs that are passed to consumers.
Coastal, fishing, and tribal communities could suffer environmental, economic, and visual impacts (on fisheries, marine habitat, and local uses) from large-scale offshore wind buildout despite mitigation, affecting livelihoods and ecosystems.
Based on analysis of 22 sections of legislative text.
Creates grant and loan programs, a compensation fund, an Offshore Power Administration, national offshore wind goals, permitting funding, and standards/studies to accelerate and coordinate offshore renewable energy buildout.
Introduced June 4, 2025 by Paul Tonko · Last progress June 4, 2025
Creates a broad federal program to accelerate offshore renewable energy development by funding U.S. shipyards and vessel fabrication, establishing an Offshore Renewable Energy Compensation Fund, setting national offshore wind capacity goals (30 GW by 2030, 50 GW by 2035), and creating an Offshore Power Administration to support transmission. It also funds permitting and science capacity at BOEM and NOAA, requires prevailing wages for certain grants, directs studies and standards for offshore transmission interoperability, and authorizes federal loans and grants to support infrastructure and industry modernization.