Even as the Biden Administration continues to place climate change policies at the top of its agenda, restrictive federal, state, and local policies threaten the viability of some renewable energy projects. In a new insight, AAF President Douglas Holtz-Eakin and Director of Regulatory Policy Dan Goldbeck use the challenges to offshore wind (OSW) as a case study of how formidable regulatory barriers are obstructing development of promising clean energy sources.

Key points:

• Permitting inefficiencies, domestic content regulations, and shipping restrictions present roadblocks to the construction of OSW projects, making the U.S. market complex and risky to enter, thus reducing competition.
• These barriers have frequently stalled the development of a promising source of clean energy and have weakened government efforts to combat climate change.
• It makes sense to use OSW where it is a low-cost source of new generation, but lawmakers can have a great influence on costs by ensuring greater coordination among federal, state, and local governments to remove onerous regulations on this source of clean energy.

Read the analysis