Biden administration is announcing plans for up to 12 lease sales for offshore wind energy

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The Biden administration is preparing to announce plans for a new five-year schedule to lease federal offshore tracts for wind energy production. The plan was to be announced Wednesday in New Orleans by Interior Secretary Deb Haaland. It calls for up to a dozen offshore energy lease sales beginning this year and continuing through 2028. Three of the anticipated sales would be for Gulf of Mexico tracts. Other sales would be for the central Atlantic, the Gulf of Maine, Oregon, California, Hawaii and an area of the Atlantic known as the New York Bight, as well a an unspecified U.S. territory.