CONCORD— This week, Democratic state Senators Martha Fuller Clark and David Watters were nominated to the Gulf of Maine Intergovernmental Renewable Energy Task Force established by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and chartered to facilitate coordination and consultation related to renewable energy planning activities in the Gulf of Maine. The first Task Force meeting will be held on December 12, 2019.

“It is an honor to be asked to serve Portsmouth, the Seacoast, and the entire state on this task force to chart the path forward on offshore wind, which presents an exciting opportunity for renewable energy in New Hampshire that will advance good jobs and help combat the climate crisis,” said Senate Energy Committee Chair Martha Fuller Clark (D-Portsmouth). “The Gulf of Maine is ideally suited for the development of offshore wind and has the potential in the not too distant future to be an energy game changer for all of New England.”

“We can no longer wait to take meaningful, proactive steps to combat the climate crisis. I am grateful for the opportunity to work with my colleagues from New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Maine, as well as federally recognized Tribes in the area to implement the development of offshore wind—an important source of local, clean, and reliable energy for the Granite State. It is also important that representatives of New Hampshire Fisheries and the Fish and Game Department are included at every step of the BOEM process,” added Senator David Watters (D-Dover), who has also introduced legislation this year to establish an offshore wind commission as well as an office of offshore wind industry development in the Department of Business and Economic Affairs.