New York’s first offshore wind hub to be built with union labor

A wind turbine at the South Fork Wind Farm in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Long Island, New York, on December 7th, 2023. | Photo by Steve Pfost / Newsday RM via Getty Images

Labor groups inked a first-of-its-kind deal to support local hiring and union jobs with the developer of New York’s first offshore wind port. It’s an agreement for the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal, envisioned as a crucial onshore staging area for some of America’s first commercial-scale offshore wind farms.

The US gets very little electricity from offshore wind today, even though the resource has the potential to meet up to a quarter of the nation’s power needs by 2050. The very first set of offshore wind farms are being built off the east coast, a key part of the Biden administration’s efforts to transition the country to clean energy.

Policymakers say good jobs are another pillar of that transition. And they hope this new agreement...

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