Category Archives: Offshore

GaryYerman| The Providence Journal

GaryYerman is fleet manager and co-founder of Sea Services North America, in Waterford, Conn.

After fishing for 45 years, Ive learned three things: 1) Theres no substitute for hard work; 2) Provide for the ocean because she provides for you; and 3) How to tell a good fishing story.

I want to share the latest chapter in the story of my life at sea. A couple of years ago, representatives from different offshore wind developers were making visits to commercial fishermen up and down the East Coast. New London Seafood Distributors was no different and I was visited regularly with stories I didnt believe and promises that felt insincere. Eventually, I sat down with Michael Theiler and Gordon Videll to talk about how to best co-exist with the inevitability of offshore wind in a time the government regulation has compromised commercial fishing viability.

We all want to know the lights will go on when we flip the switch. I learned that offshore wind is helping keep those lights on around the world and commercial fishermen are part of it. The sea has been good to me and like most fisherman, the knee jerk reaction was to fight to protect what we know and even if development is inevitable, we would get a bigger check for disruption the more we fought.

Instead, with encouragement from Orsteds Matt Morrisey, Gordon, Mike and I packed our bags and headed for Kilkeel in Northern Ireland. There we met a group of fishermen that just 10 years earlier were devastated by fishing regulations and quotas caused by the European Union. The town and port were frighteningly similar to New London with an underused port and vacant storefronts. In those 10 years, the port was rebuilt, and the storefronts were filled with thriving retail, restaurants and office space. By supplementing offshore wind work with fishing, the once struggling town had the boost it needed to right itself. The similarities were undeniable, and I knew we could do the same.

We knew the key to enduring commercial success would be to partner with an experienced developer and use top shelf software to implement the best safety policies using the native knowledge of our local fishermen; fishermen who had a true vision for what this opportunity holds for us.

Orsted leaned in to meet us just as we leaned in to meet them. They knew the industry standard for fishing vessels wouldnt meet their heightened safety requirements, but they gave us a chance. With their help and expertise, we met the requirements and exceeded expectations by providing a scout vessel for their last survey without incident. 9,000 square kilometers without as much as an entanglement with fishing gear.

The perfect storm of experience, technology and teamwork proved that there is a place for us. This is not a token contract for optics, but instead a substantive partnership that increases fishing vessel safety, keeps money local and adds great value to the offshore wind developers missions. We are looking forward to continuing our commercial relationship as the construction phase begins. Orsteds commitment to using local fishermen through Sea Services North America cannot be understated. From working through the regulatory issues, upgrading and inspecting boats and providing training, Orsted is a true partner.

Offshore wind, and Orsted in particular, has allowed us to build a business that will provide work for scores of fishermen. The economic impact that will stay the community is enormous. We arent special, but what we are building is very special and it will support many struggling fishermen. We have the chance to build on the momentum Orsteds commitment to the region has created. I hope that others seize this opportunity and storefront vacancies in my hometown are soon filled. Responsible participation in this new industry is a way for us all to provide for the ocean so that she can continue to provide for us.

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Opinion/Yerman: Fishermen need to partner with offshore wind developers - The Providence Journal

Denmark's rsted owns the first offshore wind project in the U.S., the 30-MW Block Island wind farm. The industry is now bracing for exponential growth. Source: Scott Eisen/Stringer via Getty Images

Although the offshore wind industry is enthusiastic about the new presidential administration's early efforts to kick-start projects, some are skeptical the U.S. can meet Joe Biden's goal to build 30 GW of offshore wind by 2030.

In online conferences over the past two weeks, offshore wind advocates, wary after years of mixed signals from the federal government, now see momentum gathering toward commercialization. In addition to announcing the 30-GW goal, the Biden administration has also completed the environmental impact statement for the nation's first major offshore wind proposal. Executives for Iberdrola SA subsidiary Avangrid Inc. on May 4 said the 800-MW Vineyard Offshore Wind Project is on track to start producing power in 2023. Avangrid Renewables LLC is developing the project with Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners K/S. The Biden administration is expected to make a decision on the project in May.

"There have been a couple of what I would consider false starts for the U.S. offshore industry," Ethan Zindler, head of Americas at BloombergNEF, said at a panel held by the American Council on Renewable Energy. "This is not that. I think we are really, truly at the beginning of a major growth phase for U.S. offshore."

The U.S. Department of the Interior's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management has taken initial steps to prepare environmental statements for rsted A/S and Public Service Enterprise Group Inc.'s planned 1,100-MW Ocean Offshore Wind Farm off the coast of New Jersey. BOEM did the same for rsted and Eversource Energy's proposed 704-MW Revolution Wind Offshore project off the coasts of Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Preparation of the statements triggers public comment periods that inform the companies' construction and operations plans.

But Zindler and others do not anticipate that the U.S. can meet the 30 GW-by-2030 goal. BloombergNEF projects that the U.S. can reach 23 GW by decade's end. Anything beyond that will require a transformation of BOEM's permitting process, as well as coordination between states, federal agencies and grid operators to build out an ocean grid.

"That would mean BOEM would really have to step on the gas to get to 30 GW," Zindler said. "We're talking really a lot more work."

Conversely, he said, BOEM must also ensure that any permits can withstand legal challenges. The commercial fishing industry has been vocal in its opposition to offshore wind farms.

Overall, BOEM wants to accelerate new lease sales and complete 16 construction and operations plans by 2025, representing 19 GW of offshore wind capacity. Recently, BOEM opened up the prized New York Bight area between Long Island and New Jersey, and a lease sale is anticipated for late 2021 or early 2022.

A critical issue for the industry has been regulatory certainty. The Trump administration several times delayed a final decision on the Vineyard Wind project.

But however fast the federal government moves, it must also coordinate with grid operators and states to connect offshore wind to interconnections onshore. There are 33.1 GW of state targets through 2035.

BOEM promises certainty

Amanda Lefton, BOEM's new director, said in an interview with S&P Global Market Intelligence that the administration is taking an "all-government approach to solving offshore wind," which features more coordination between U.S. agencies.

"We know that what's going to be really important is for us to have a more certain process for the industry, for other ocean users, and really for our federal partners to ensure that we have the process for advancing offshore wind that ensures that we are both doing this efficiently and expeditiously as well as responsibly," she said.

Lefton added that BOEM is "taking a hard look" at how to update regulations with respect to renewable energy to ensure a quicker route to market for developers. "There is certainly a lot of opportunity," to advance projects faster, she said.

BOEM is evaluating more options for lease sales in the Carolinas, Gulf of Maine and the Pacific, where conflicts with the military have hampered development.

California aims to catch up

For the nation to reach the 30 GW goal, the West Coast would need to play a larger role. California has been leading the renewable energy boom in the U.S., but not on offshore wind, and it has set no state target.

State lawmakers introduced Assembly Bill 525 to set a target of 10,000 MW of offshore wind by 2040. But the specific target was stripped from the bill, which has made it through several committees.

"We haven't seen the clear state leadership in California that we've seen on the East Coast," Brandon Burke, vice president for policy and regulatory engagement for the Business Network for Offshore Wind, said at the ACORE conference.

At another virtual conference held by the trade group Offshore Wind California, participants agreed the Golden State state needs to set a capacity target to give the industry a path toward building floating offshore wind projects.

"If you don't have a target, you don't know what you need to have in place ... you have to break that circle. That's not only supply chain; but you're also talking grid, investment, developers. And I think in that context, setting targets is actually a very useful tool to say, 'Look, this is what we have in terms of an opportunity'," Dan Kyle Spearman, associate director and global lead for floating wind at the Renewables Consulting Group, said.

Participants expressed confidence that floating offshore wind can be competitive with other renewable technologies.

Sebastian Bringsvaerd, head of floating wind for Equinor ASA, which is behind the Boardwalk Offshore Wind and Beacon Offshore Wind Project, said, "What is innovation? Innovation is not a floating wind structure; that has been used in oil and gas for more than 50 years."

"The innovation here is really to get to industrialization and cost reduction fast enough to meet the need in the markets," Bringsvaerd said. "And that's where you need scale."

Ocean grid

The 30-GW goal also requires the U.S. to resolve the thorny issue of building transmission lines in the ocean.

"All of this is going to require significant investment in infrastructure and particularly with interconnection; offshore projects are currently subject to rules that were designed for the interconnection of onshore projects and so as a result, developers are going to spend millions in radial connection facilities to deliver power from miles offshore to mainland substations," Cory Lankford, a partner at Orrick, said at the ACORE conference.

Lankford pointed to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's denial of Anbaric Development Partners LLC's complaint that the PJM Interconnection failed to offer meaningful interconnection services to build an open-access ocean grid. But, he noted, FERC opened a technical conference on the issue, and comments are open.

Elisabeth Treseder, New England market lead for Equinor Wind US LLC, said developing an open-access transmission system could be "cumbersome and from our perspective unnecessary and could impede the timely interconnection," of projects.

Eric Wilkinson, energy policy analyst for government affairs at rsted, which owns the nation's first offshore wind farm, the 29.3-MW Block Island Offshore Wind farm, said, "One of our primary concerns is timing; we can't wait for the perfect transmission system to be conceived of, permitted and built."

The Department of Energy is offering up billions in debt funding opportunities for offshore wind infrastructure.

A leadership void remains on the transmission issue as federal agencies, states, grid operators and ocean users debate it, according to Burke, of the Business Network for Offshore Wind.

"You have this kind of Gordian knot of interstate and inter-regional cooperation that has to be untangled, and that is where in many ways you can see federal leadership fitting in," he told the ACORE audience.

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A supportive offshore wind industry sees Biden's 2030 goal as ambitious - S&P Global

The race is on for what will likely be the biggest round of offshore wind energy contracts in Massachusetts so far.

The Baker administration, working with three electric utilities, kicked off the states third contest for offshore wind contracts on Friday. Bidders are using these contracts with Eversource, National Grid, and Unitil to finance the construction of multi-billion-dollar wind farms south of Marthas Vineyard and Nantucket. The state published the rules for this round in March. Bids are due by Sept. 16, and a winner will be picked in December.

This round involves contracts for up to 1,600 megawatts of offshore wind power, or enough juice for about 800,000 homes. The previous two rounds, won by Vineyard Wind and Mayflower Wind, respectively, each involved contracts for 800 megawatts of power. Energy officials in Governor Charlie Bakers administration hope that a larger bid could bring with it economies of scale, and also necessitate fewer transmission hookups to the mainland grid.

For the first time, bidders will need to submit equity and inclusion plans showing their commitment to diversity among their workforces and their suppliers. State energy officials and the utilities will weigh so-called qualitative factors such as economic development potential, diversity, and environmental and socioeconomic impacts slightly more than they did in the past.

But the cost to ratepayers will remain the primary factor, and state rules require that each successive winning bid come in at a lower price, based on the rate of electricity charged, than the previous winning bid (in this case, Mayflowers). Price will represent 70 percent of the scoring this time, versus 75 percent in the previous two rounds, with the qualitative factors making up the other 30 percent of the scoring.

That shift probably wont be enough to calm concerns in the offshore wind industry that states such as New York and New Jersey are passing Massachusetts in the arms race for offshore-wind jobs, even after Massachusetts was the first to start holding these state-orchestrated bids.

New Jersey officials, for example, trumpeted plans for a $250 million facility to make steel foundations for wind turbines in December, and plans for a wind-tower manufacturing plant at the Port of Albany announced by New York officials in January will draw hundreds of millions of dollars of private investment to that area. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo boasted that his state will have five active port facilities serving the offshore wind industry, more than any other state.

Katie Theoharides, Bakers energy and environmental affairs secretary, defended the administrations approach in an interview on Friday. She noted that the quasi-public Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, which she oversees, built and runs a wind turbine terminal on the New Bedford waterfront as well as a blade testing center in Charlestown.

Were getting more bang for our buck in terms of whats included in these contracts, Theoharides said. We want to ensure, first and foremost, that were getting a low-cost, effective price for ratepayers in a state that has incredibly high expensive prices for electricity. Were proving offshore wind can compete [with other sources of electricity] and that any other economic development were getting is a firm commitment and a good investment for the commonwealth.

Only four wind farm developers have lease rights for federal waters off the coast of Massachusetts and are in the position to compete for these bids: Vineyard Wind (a partnership of Avangrid and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners), Equinor (formerly Statoil), Mayflower Wind (a partnership of Shell, EDP Renewables, and Engie), and Bay State Wind (rsted and Eversource).

Although two small offshore wind farms have gone up off Block Island, and off Virginia Beach, Vineyard Wind would be the first major utility-scale project built in the US. It faced significant delays amid reviews under the Trump administration, but was recently fast-tracked by the Biden administration. The developers hope to secure financing by the end of the year before starting construction, and to start generating power by the end of 2023.

Jon Chesto can be reached at jon.chesto@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @jonchesto.

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Baker administration kicks off new round of bidding for offshore wind contracts - BetaBoston

The global financial system is infected with dirty money. Despite decades of progress in strengthening policies aimed at stamping out cross-border tax evasion and money laundering, many of those looking to stash their money overseas to avoid taxation or prosecution can still do so with relative impunity. As the FinCEN Files scandal last year revealed, banksthemselves the tip of the spear in the fight against financial crimeoften fail to catch the worst offenders in a timely manner. Tax authorities and financial intelligence units also struggle to keep up, due to the basic fact that it becomes very difficult to track what happens to money the minute it leaves your economy and goes offshore.

A lot of hidden wealth either ends up in or transits through tax havens: jurisdictions that offer low tax rates and high degrees of financial secrecy, including legal systems and regulations that make it easier for people to keep their wealth hidden from the prying eyes of their governments back home. In the past decade many governments have made a lot of progress in getting archetypal havens to start sharing information on the owners of offshore wealth. But while these efforts have succeeded in sending a lot of tax haven clients scrambling for new places to hide their money, they have given policymakers and researchers only a glimpse into who uses and benefits from tax havens.

Fighting dirty money is going to require a concerted effort by regulators, law enforcement, the press, civil society, and researchers around the world.

Occasionally, data leaks mean we get to fully rip back the curtain surrounding the offshore economy. In late 2019, Distributed Denial of Secrets, a Wikileaks-style journalist collective, released a leaked cache of internal files and emails from the Cayman National Bank and Trusta bank based in the Isle of Man, home of a large offshore financial industry. The leak appears to have been perpetrated by the anonymous hacktivist known as Phineas Fisher. The hackerwhose only live interview to date is in the form of a sock puppetmade their name by hacking surveillance and spyware organizations like the Gamma Group and Hacking Team.

Thanks to the leak, investigative journalists around the world have highlighted several of the banks more questionable clients. These ranged from a Russian billionaire on the lam from the IRS for tax evasion, a former Armenian government official under investigation for corruption, and even companies connected to the German payments company Wirecard, which recently collapsed under the weight of a 1.9 billion euro accounting fraud scandal. But while the headline-grabbing cases are more salient, they dont tell the whole story. In a new working paper, I use the data from the leak to start answering some fundamental questions about who stores their money in tax havens and how that should alter our approach to fighting dirty money, both abroad and at home.

After a year of going through the data, which at its peak covered about $200 million in offshore deposits, I made three discoveries.

The data in the leak allowed me to pinpoint where the banks clients were based: both those with their own account and those indirectly connected to the bank because they owned or benefited from an entity that held an account there. This made it possible to understand whether clients were more likely to come from richer parts of the world and if the amount of wealth they hadmeasured by their account balancessuggested they were likely to be rich themselves.

Clients of offshore banks appear to be wealthy by nearly any metric. Adjusted for each countrys population, there are nearly five times as many clients from countries with a GDP per capita of $50,000, such as Sweden, than there are for those with a GDP per capita of $5,000, such as Ghana. No matter what country they were based in, at their peak the amount of money clients had in their bank account was substantial, with the median person having about twice their national income. For some countries, the difference was even more stark: Clients from Ukraine had roughly 50 times their national income in offshore deposits and those from Nigeria had roughly 150 times. Even when we look within a country, offshore clients appear rich. Pinpointing where the banks British clients lived revealed that they were more likely to be based in parts of the United Kingdom that were richer and had higher property values.

While rich people like to use tax havens is not going to make the headlines, it reinforces a growing body of evidence that, no matter which country you are looking at, it is those that are the most well off that are the most likely to stash their money in offshore accounts. This wouldnt be a problem if tax authorities knew where to find that money, but they dont. A recent working paper written by academics in collaboration with the IRS shows that random audits routinely fail to capture the extent to which richer taxpayers stash their wealth abroadleaving approximately $15 billion in taxes on the table (most of which was owed by the top 0.1 percent of the income distribution). This not only makes it hard to raise revenue, it forces tax authorities to claw back more money from poorer people by auditing them more often. The offshore world doesnt just enable the rich to reduce their tax bill, it amplifies inequality around the world.

To fight back, tax authorities are going to have to start investing in auditing rich people morea reality that the Biden administration has recently embraced by proposing an $80 billion increase in IRS funding. But to set those audits up for success, we have to break down the information barriers that governments face. This means expanding and improving upon the growing global network of exchange agreements that tax authorities use to hunt down those offshore depositsan effort that will require not only more coordination, but full participation from the United States.

Far too often, politicians use their connections to enrich themselves, their friends, or their families. Because of this, banks are required by most regulators to identify clients who wield political poweror those close to powerful peopleto ensure they are not using the financial system to hide ill-gotten gains. The data from the leak indicate that Cayman National Bank did just this: Records suggest they maintained a register of these politically-exposed persons (PEPs), conducted frequent due diligence, and reported them to the authorities whenever concerns arose.

Yet despite being watched more closely, offshore clients with political connections displayed some worrying characteristics. Compared to other clients of the bank they were more likely to use tax havens both as a domicile and as a source of funds. They also controlled substantially more wealth during their relationship with the bank. Relative to the number of ordinary clients the bank was connected to, PEPs were also disproportionately from countries that have a poor record on corruption, many of them from post-Soviet countries.

None of these statistics prove anyone was doing anything wrong, but the presence of a large number of politically connected clients in the offshore (or any other) economy should give regulators pause. Because a government official working in a financial intelligence unit will only observe a politically-connected client if and when a bank registers a concern (through a process known as suspicious activity reporting), the presence of political elites in the banking system will largely go unseen by regulators.

Regulators need to know when their economies are being targeted by those with political powereither those at home or from abroad. For example, while the presence of a single Russian politically connected client wouldnt be cause for alarmregulators would certainly want to know if most of a banks clientele were Russian PEPs. One solution would be to require banks to begin reporting aggregate figures on PEP clients. This could be an important component in the risk assessments that governments around the world routinely conduct in order to understand where the money laundering threats and vulnerabilities in their economy lay.

Most people with offshore bank accounts dont hold money under their own name, but instead establish shell companiesfirms that have no physical presence and dont engage in any real forms of economic activityto hold it on their behalf. Their presence can make it very hard for regulators (and even banks) to fully understand who ultimately controls a bank account or benefits from a transaction. Even when shell companies in tax havens are being used for legitimate reasons, their existence creates a fundamental problem for the way we measure offshore wealthone that international tax researchers have been grappling with for years.

Most studies of offshore wealth and its drivers rely in part on data from the Bank of International Settlements (BIS). Every quarter, banks in participating jurisdictions are required to count up and report all the deposits owned by foreigners (known as cross-border liabilities), which the BIS then aggregates and publishes as part of its Locational Banking Statistics. However, the BIS only requires banks to report this information based on the residence of immediate counterpartythat is, the most proximate owner of the offshore wealth. When that is a person, it is a relatively straightforward process: Deposits owned by French residents will get assigned to France. But when a French resident owns those deposits through a shell company based in Liechtenstein, the bank will only report that they are controlled by someone in the latter, not the former. In practice, this means that the BISs datawithout adjustmentwill undercount wealth held in tax havens by the rest of the world.

How badly does this skew the data? Information from the leak offers a few clues: Because it is possible to observe the ultimate beneficial owner or beneficiary of the offshore entities that had an account with the bank, its possible to calculate the share of deposits that are actually owned by foreigners who are based in non-haven countries but are instead reported to the BIS as being owned by people in tax havens because they are owned through entities based in havens. Once this correction is made, the differences are stark: About half of all wealth owned by people who dont live in tax havens is incorrectly reported as being owned by people who live in tax havens (for the record, very few people live in tax havens).

The presence of shell companies and the way data on them is collected makes it harder to understand how much wealth sits offshore, but much of this can be fixed with a simple tweak of the rules. The Bank of International Settlements should ask banks to start collecting information based on the ultimate residence or nationality of their clients. This would not be an onerous exercise for banks, as they are already required to collect this information as part of their due diligence obligations for onboarding new clients. It would also be in keeping with the BISs efforts to understand the ultimate nationality of ownership for other financial instruments, such as debt securities.

Much like the lessons learned after the Panama Papers scandal or the FinCEN Files, these three discoveries were only possible because someone leaked data onto the internet. While we should take every opportunity we can to learn from these leaks, its not a sustainable way to bring light to the darkest recesses of the offshore world.

Fighting dirty money is going to require a concerted effort by regulators, law enforcement, the press, civil society, and researchers around the world. The closest thing to a silver bullet that the effort needs is better information on who owns what. And we can get that information by passing laws that force the ultimate owners of shell companies and trusts to reveal themselves. At least 80 countries around the world have started making progress on this front, passing laws to create what are called beneficial ownership registries. The U.S. has recently followed suit with the introduction of the Corporate Transparency Act, which will require companies to disclose this information to FinCEN, our financial intelligence unit.

But while providing that information to the right people in government is a first step, it isnt enough. When possible, data from beneficial ownership registries (and even anonymized information from tax exchange agreements) needs to be made public. This enables the public to act as an auditor as a last resort: Civil society and the media have highlighted major issues in beneficial ownership registries in both the U.K.and Luxembourg. It also helps entrepreneurial data sleuths hunt for clues that law enforcement might miss.

Our ability to understand and curb the impact that offshore wealth has on our world shouldnt be decided by the efforts of hackers and investigative journalists. We need policies in place to make this kind of data more freely available, to everyone. While the financial system may be infected with dirty money, it turns out that sunlight can be a powerful disinfectant.

Link:

The hacker, the tax haven, and what $200 million in offshore deposits can tell us about the fight against illicit wealth - Brookings Institution

Dive Brief:

Dominion has identified nearly $72 billion dollars of investment opportunities in decarbonization from 2020 through 2035, which would leverage its resources and experiences with technologies like offshore wind.

Dominion's offshore wind pilot off the coast of Virginia is the only U.S. wind farm currently operating in federal waters, and the company is looking to leverage that Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) permitting experience as it pursues its goal of expanding offshore wind energy. The utility sees the potential for up to $17 billion of investment in offshore wind by 2035.

"The [BOEM] leadership and the administration clearly thinks offshore wind is good economically and to meet carbon goals,"Blue said on the earnings call.

Dominion also sees the opportunity to invest up to $20 billion over the long term in solar, and up to $7 billion in energy storage.The Virginia Clean Economy Act requires the utility to procure a combined 16 GW of solar and onshore wind by the end of 2035.

Other investments foreseen by Dominion include up to $15 billion in electric grid transformation, up to $4 billion in extending life of existing nuclear assets and up to $9 billion in modernizing gas distribution and renewable natural gas.

Dominion has sought to be an early adopter of blending hydrogen and renewable natural gas into its gas distribution business, according to Diane Leopold, the chief operating office.

"We see a combination of moving forward with continued pilots and testings of hydrogen blending throughout our [gas distribution] system," Leopold said during the call.

Analysts on Tuesday's call asked if the financial burden of these investments might be lessened for the utility by the proposed tax benefits in Biden administration's infrastructure plan, such as the potential for an energy storage tax credit.

While it's too early to tell, Blue claimed Dominion is "very well positioned" to decarbonize reliably and affordably.

The state's regulatory activity has presented a "somewhat weaker [investment opportunity] in terms of its treatment of utilities, but we believe it remains a constructive environment," Edward Jones wrote in its Dominion ratings note on Tuesday. Democrats, who won control of the state legislature in 2019, have advanced a variety of bills that the utility has opposed. In addition, state regulators are putting more pressure on utilities nationwide regarding their spending due to the economic pressures of the pandemic and concerns about grid reliability, according to Edward Jones analyst Mike Doyle.

"There may be a bit more of a firm regulatory environment across the nation," particularly "in the states where you have had historically solid regulatory environments," Doyle said, referencing Virginia and South Carolina, another region served by an electric utility owned by Dominion.

Local news coverage has described the upcoming triennial review proceeding, which will cover four years instead of three for Dominion, as "the one everyone has been waiting for," to determine if the largest utility in the state has been charging customers reasonable base rates.

Customers could receive compensation for overpaying the utility in the event that the Virginia State Corporation Commission deems the base rate has been too high.

Dominion's triennial review filing reflects over $300 million of capital investment in renewable energy and grid transformation projects between 2017 and 2020 which the utility believes would meet eligibility criteria for reinvestment credits for customers.

"We're delivering increasingly clean energy while protecting reliability and safeguarding affordability," Blue said.

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Dominion looks to leverage offshore wind permitting experience amid $26B clean energy push - Utility Dive

New oil and gas leases off the Southern California coastline would be permanently banned, under a bill introduced Friday by Mike Levin (D- San Juan Capistrano.)

The legislation would prohibit any new leasing for oil or gas exploration, development, or production, from San Diego to the northern border of San Luis Obispo County. The House Natural Resources Committee will hold a hearing on Levins bill and other related offshore drilling legislation Thursday.

The Southern California coast is home to world-renowned beaches, cherished marine life, and billions of dollars in ocean-based economic activity that are central to our quality of life but are threatened by offshore drilling, Levin said in a statement. Oil spills from offshore drilling have done devastating damage to our coastline before, which is why Californians overwhelmingly support a ban on new drilling activity along our coast.

Although offshore drilling in California has stalled since the 1980s, there are 23 oil and gas drilling platforms remaining in federal waters off California, near Santa Barbara County, Huntington Beach, and Seal Beach, Levin said.

Moreover the potential for new leases exists with each administration. Former President Donald Trump attempted to reopen offshore oil production as part of an effort to achieve energy dominance in America, but he met with backlash from citizens, businesses and governments in California and elsewhere.

Levins bill is one of several throughout the country that aim to enshrine coastal drilling bans into law, said Surfrider Environmental Director Pete Stauffer.

Every president can update the offshore drilling plan, Stauffer said. No one expects the Biden administration to approve new offshore drilling, however, a future president can certainly come in and do that. Thats why theres a tremendous push, not only in Southern California, but also around the country, to establish new protections against offshore drilling.

Coming a week after Gov. Gavin Newsoms order to end new fracking permits in California by January 2024, Levins bill represents a statewide shift away from fossil fuel production.

Newsom also directed the California Air Resources Board to analyze ways to phase out oil extraction by 2045. Those actions reflect a shared goal of tackling climate change and safeguarding Californias environment, Levin said.

Like Governor Newsoms plan to ban hydraulic fracturing by 2024, my bill recognizes the need to shift away from fossil fuel extraction that is driving the climate crisis and threatening our quality of life in California, Levin said in an e-mail.

It also aims to protect the 50 miles of coastline in his district, which stretches from Del Mar to Dana Point. Eliminating offshore drilling would prevent potential disasters such as the 1969 Santa Barbara spill the third largest in U.S. history and other leaks from oil rigs and pipelines that together have released more than 4 million gallons of oil into the Pacific Ocean, he stated.

Fishing, tourism, and recreation along Californias coastline supports nearly 600,000 jobs and roughly $42.3 billion in economy activity, Levins office said. In San Diego alone, the maritime economy accounts for $14 billion in direct sales annually and more than 45,000 jobs, according to the Maritime Alliance.

In Southern California, our economy and way of life depend directly on a clean coastal environment, so offshore drilling is not compatible with that, Stauffer said.

Read more from the original source:

Ocean protection bill would ban new offshore drilling in Southern California - The San Diego Union-Tribune

WASHINGTON New Jersey Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. (D-06) todayannounced his intentionto file a bill to permanently protect the Atlantic Ocean from offshore drilling. In response,the Southern Environmental Law Center issued the following statement:

Its time to end the whiplash coastal communities have endured in recent years as drilling has been put on the table and taken off the table. This bill is an important start to the conversation about meaningful and permanent protections for the Atlantic Ocean, which coastal communities are craving to safeguard their families and their economies. Sierra Weaver, senior attorney

Since 2013, the Atlantic has been proposed for drilling, and then granted reprieves, first by the Obama administration and then the Trump administration. In the waning months of 2020, President Trump reversed his earlier course and issued executive orders banning drilling for 10 years in some sections of the Atlantic, but also made campaign promises that were ultimately unfulfilled for other sections. President Biden has likewise taken executive action to further delay new leasing while his administration considers its overall energy policy.

The hundreds of coastal communities that depend on the Atlantic Ocean and the economy it provides must be assured offshore drilling is forever abandoned.

See the original post here:

SELC statement on bill to ban offshore drilling in the Atlantic - Southern Environmental Law Center

The Government of South Korea will invest KRW 1.4 trillion (around EUR 1 billion) in the first phase of the project to develop a 6 GW floating wind farm offshore Ulsan, the countrys president Moon Jae-in said.

The mammoth project will need a public-private investment of some KRW 36 trillion (EUR 26.7 billion), with the full commissioning expected in 2030.

Some 20 per cent of the electricity produced at the wind farm could be used to produce around 84,000 tons of hydrogen per year, Moon said.

This one project alone would meet half of the countrys offshore wind capacity target by 2030.

The project is expected to create 210,000 jobs, Moon said.

The 6 GW wind farm will be built at the site of the Donghae 1 gas field which is scheduled to end production in 2022.

Located some 58 kilometres off Ulsan, the site has already been selected by Korea National Oil Corporation (KNOC), Korea East-West Power (EWP), and Equinor for the development of the 200 MW Donghae 1 demonstration floating wind farm.

A portion of the power produced at Donghae 1 will be used to power a 100 MW electrolyser plant being developed under a different project.

As big as this 6 GW floating wind farm is, it is still not the largest offshore wind project announced in South Korea.

Back in February, the country launched a KRW 48.5 trillion project to build an 8.2 GW fixed-bottom offshore wind farm off the Sinan County, South Jeolla Province, by 2030.

If both of these projects are fully built, South Korea will blow past its target of having 12 GW of installed offshore wind capacity by 2030.

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South Korea Unveils EUR 27 Billion Floating Wind Project - Offshore WIND

DUBLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The "Global Oil and Gas Industry Contracts Review, Q1 2021 - BW Offshore Secures EPCI and Operation Contract for Barossa FPSO in Australia" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

The report portrays detailed comparative data on the number of contracts and their value in the quarter, subdivided by region, sector and geographies during the quarter, Additionally, the report provides information on the top contractors and issuers based on the worth of contracts executed in the oil and gas industry during the quarter by geographies and over the year.

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For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/pj6opl

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Global Oil and Gas Industry Contracts Report, Q1 2021 - BW Offshore Secures EPCI and Operation Contract for Barossa FPSO in Australia -...

Five years ago, tax law expertAndrLareauwas blockedfromgiving testimony before the House of Commons finance committee by a last-minute gag order preventing witnesses from talking about a prominentaccounting firm'stax avoidancescheme.

Now, he has a message for the members of Parliament who are todayrebooting theirprobe into offshore companies registeredin the Isle of Man: if they'reserious this time,they should subpoena the Canadian accountants who helped toset up theoffshore tax dodge and demand that theygive upthe names of the wealthy Canadians whose identities they've beenprotecting.

"If the committee is willing to open that, well, maybe, just maybe, that means that they are pretty serious about it," Lareau, an associate professor at Laval University,told CBC News.

MPs are re-launching theprobe Parliamentarianshalted in June 2016after the accounting firm KPMG said witness testimony in Ottawa could prejudice ongoing court cases.

CBC's the Fifth Estate and Radio-Canada's Enquete reported earlier this year that shell companies set up in the Isle of Man are suspected of involvement in a massive fraud that cost investors their life savings.Some experts believeKPMGmay have had a hand in creating those companies.

Documents obtained from the Isle of Man's public registry, as well as emails from an offshore leak of financial data, show links betweenKPMG and four shell companies set up in December 2001 that werenamed after ancient swords.

KPMG acknowledges it set up a tax avoidance and asset protection "structure" in the Isle of Man for wealthy Canadians beginning in the late 1990s.

But the accounting firm also known for providing advisory and auditing services to federal and provincial governments denies having anything to do with helping toset up the four shellcompanieslater suspected of being involved in a financial fraud that cost investors their life savings, and where more than $500 million disappeared offshore.

CBC/Radio-Canada's revelation of asuspected connectionbetween those shell companies and the missing millionsprompted fraud victims and opposition parties to call for a reboot of the finance committee's long-dormant investigation of the Isle of Man and offshore shell companies.

"People have been cheated, they have lost their savings. The federal government should do more than pay lip service in the fight against tax evasion and international tax evaders," said NDP MP Peter Julian.

"Canadian offshore bank accounts are hiding money from the government. Why would any party not want that revealed?" said Green Party MP Elizabeth May.

MPsfrom all parties voted last weekto resumecommitteehearings this afternoon into offshore tax shelters, including those in the Isle of Man.

Today's witness list includes LucyIacovelli KPMGCanada's managing partner for tax andJanet Watson, who lost her savings in a Montreal-based fraud known as the Cinar/Norshield/Mount Real scheme.

Lareau saidthat, for the revived committeeprobe to be effective, MPs must call the individual accountants and bankers who were involved in setting up various Isle of Man shell companies and who know the namesof the wealthy Canadians or "beneficial owners" behind them.

"Obviously, they will talk only to the committee if they are obliged to do so," Lareau said, pointing outthatCommons committees have the power to issue subpoenas.

In the past, KPMG has opposed releasing the names of the wealthy Canadians behind multipleshell companies it helped to set upin the Isle of Man, citing client confidentiality.

Lareau said he believesthatMPs were underpressure from the accounting industry to limit their probewhen they launched itfive years ago.

In 2016, the Liberal-dominated finance committee defeated an opposition motion to compelKPMGto provide the names of the "beneficial owners" of thoseshell companies. DennisHowlett, the former head of Canadians for Tax Fairness, said it's high time the veil was lifted.

"It would be a good idea to forceKPMGto disclose beneficial owners," saidHowlett. "It's not right that people can hide behind shell companies."

The Trudeau government said in its recent budget that, as part of a plan to crack down on tax avoidance, it would introducea registry toidentify the beneficial owners ofCanadian companies.

While that measure wouldn'taffect the Canadiansbehind offshore companies, it does indicate the Liberal government is concerned about corporations set up to protect the identities of theirtrue owners, saidHowlett.

Howlettisone of the tax experts who was alsoprevented from testifying at the House of Commons finance committee five years ago.

Both Howlett andLareau wereasked to testify about the KPMG Isle of Man scheme but were barredfrom even mentioning the name of the accounting firm when they got to the witness stand.

Lareau and Howlett were told that a lawyer for KPMG had written a letter to the committee warningthat a continued probe of the accounting firm could improperly affect ongoing tax court cases.

Liberal MPWayne Easter,chair of the finance committee, then toldLareau and Howlett they could not giveany testimony related to the accounting firm's Isle of Man tax scheme.

"Why am I here?" Lareausaid at the time. "They asked me to come here to speak about KPMG and I'm prevented from speaking about KPMG."

"The particular case that we're not supposed to refer to is only the tip of the iceberg," Howlett told MPs on the committeein 2016.

The three tax court casesKPMGsaid it was concerned about weresettled out of court two years ago but the finance committee never resumed its probe until news reports earlier this year revealed new information regardingKPMG'spotential connection to companies later suspected of involvementin the fraud.

Financial asset tracers have said that identifying the true owners behind the so-called "sword companies" Katar, Sceax, Spatha and Shashqua could go a long way in helping governmentsunderstandhow they may have been involved in the fraud, and where the money ended up.

"If I had got this information while we were still on the scene, we would have tried to get to the bottom of this," said lawyer and asset tracerWes Voorheis, who was hired to find some of the missing money in 2004.

KPMG insisted it conducted an in-depth review of its files before concluding it had no connection to the sword companies.

"KPMG Canada has thoroughly considered and refuted any connection between KPMG Canada and the sword companies," MarkGelowitz, KPMG's lawyer, said in a recent letter to CBC.

"Unless CBC has additional evidence of KPMG Canada's involvement with the sword companies that it has not shared with KPMG Canada, the proposed allegations are demonstrably unsubstantiated, false and defamatory."

Gelowitzpointed tothe fact that KPMG had hired Ian Binnie, "a retired Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada," to conduct an independent review of its files.

Binnie's review, based on documents and information provided to him by KPMG,concluded that the sword companies along withmore than a dozen other Isle of Man shell companies identified by journalists were not connected to the accounting firm's offshore tax structure.

Binniehas declined to speak directlyto journalists about his report, optinginstead to communicate via email.

KPMG has said the leaked emails that state the accounting firm set up the sword companies are unreliable. The emails were obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and emerged after Binnie had written his report. KPMG says their author did not have knowledge of its operations at the timeand that she was "mistaken."

Binnie turned down CBC's request to discuss the leaked emails and whether they might affect the conclusions in his report.

After stating he would speak withKPMG'slegal counsel,BinniesentCBC/Radio-Canada an email:"I have no reason to doubt the due diligence undertaken byKPMG."

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MPs urged to demand the names of Canadians behind offshore tax shelters - CBC.ca