Ocean City representatives will travel to Baltimore next week to attend a motions hearing in its lawsuit against the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.
Since the city filed suit against the federal government last October, the case has slowly made its way through the court system. And next Tuesday, a U.S. District Court judge will hear arguments on motions to dismiss.
“There are two different motions,” City Manager Terry McGean said during this week’s mayor and City Council meeting, “one by the federal government, which is a motion to dismiss two of the seven counts of our lawsuit, and one by US Wind that is looking to dismiss the entire lawsuit.”
Last fall, the Town of Ocean City – joined by the Worcester County Commissioners, Town of Fenwick Island and several other named co-plaintiffs – filed a lawsuit challenging the federal government’s process for approving the US Wind project, which will involve the construction of 114, 938-foot-tall wind turbines located nearly 11 miles off Ocean City’s coast.
Specifically, the lawsuit alleges the U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and the National Marine Fisheries Service failed to conduct a transparent approval process and meet statutory and regulatory requirements. Since that time, however, the federal government has filed a motion to dismiss two of the city’s claims under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and the Coastal Zone Management Act.
“Plaintiffs fail to state a MBTA claim for which relief can be granted because BOEM is not required to obtain MBTA authorization when it acts in a regulatory capacity,” a motion for partial dismissal reads. “Similarly, Plaintiffs’ CZMA claim fails to state any violation of law by Federal Defendants.”
Let’s not do forget national security being compromised by the electromagnetic forces generated by these wind turbines interfering with sensitive communication by our defense forces