The US will auction off over 480,00 acres (194,249 hectares) of prime offshore wind acreage off its eastern seaboard in the New York Bight with over 7GW of offshore wind capacity in what will be the first sector leasing under the Biden administration.

Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland joined New Jersey governor Phil Murphy, New York governor Kathy Hochul, and labor union leader Liz Shuleri in a conference call to announce the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), the government agency charged with managing industrial development in federal waters, would auction off six leases – the most ever offered in a single auction – on 23 February in the waters off New Jersey and New York.