Twentieth-century legal battles between state and federal authorities over offshore mineral leases led Congress to enact laws that address which activities, and which locations, give rise to state and federal control (e.g., the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA), the Submerged Lands Act, and the Coastal Zone Management Act (CZMA)). As the United States prepares to embrace renewable energy sources offshore, these statutes — initially designed to manage traditional oil and gas development — will be applied to offshore wind. How the CZMA will be applied in the context of offshore wind energy development is particularly important to understand, as active locations for wind leasing offshore include coastal states that have not historically been heavily involved in offshore oil and gas development. While the Biden Administration beats the drum for offshore wind development for all of America's coastlines, lessons from the Gulf Coast states show that the CZMA can empower individual states — and even individual municipalities or counties — to have an outsized impact on offshore energy development. Continue reading >