Bureau of Ocean Energy Management December 21, 2012 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The purpose of this public notice is to: (1) Describe the proposal submitted to BOEM by the Commonwealth of Virginia, Department of Mines Minerals and Energy (DMME) to acquire an OCS lease for wind energy research activities; (2) solicit public input regarding the proposal, its potential environmental consequences, and the use of the area in which the proposed project would be located; and (3) solicit indications of competitive interest for a research lease in the area identified by DMME for activities that would support future, potential commercial wind development. On June 1, 2012, BOEM received an unsolicited request for a research lease from DMME. The objective of DMME is to obtain a lease under 30 CFR 585.238 for renewable energy research activities, including the siting of two meteorological and ocean monitoring platforms for pre-and post-construction collection of resource data, including wind velocities, water levels, waves, and bird and bat activities, to support the future production of renewable energy within and around the Wind Energy Area (WEA) offshore Virginia, identified by BOEM. This RFCI is published pursuant to subsection 8(p)(3) of the OCS Lands Act, as amended by section 388 of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (EPAct) (43 U.S.C. 1337(p)(3)), and the implementing regulations at 30 CFR Part 585.