On May 13, 2025, Save Long Beach Island, Inc., joined by Save the East Coast, Protect Our Coast Long Island-New York, and the Miss Belmar whale watching company, filed a federal lawsuit in the District of New Jersey challenging the prior approvals of the Empire Wind offshore wind project off of Long Branch, NJ and Long Beach, NY.

The lawsuit, filed against the U.S. Department of Commerce, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), and the Department of the Interior, alleges that the federal government violated multiple environmental laws—including the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) and the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)—by authorizing the construction and operation of the Empire Wind project without adequately safeguarding marine mammals and properly examining the project’s full environmental impact.

The fulcrum of the complaint is NMFS’s approval of an Incidental Take Authorization (ITA),which permits Empire Wind to disturb or harm thousands of marine mammals, including over 30% of the Northern Migratory Coastal Bottlenose Dolphin population annually, far surpassing the legal limits allowed under the MMPA.

“Authorizing the Take of nearly one-third of a protected dolphin population in a single year, and the majority of that population over the course of the project’s 5-year period, is not just illegal, it’s ecologically reckless,” said Dr. Robert Stern, President of Save LBI. “This lawsuit is about enforcing the scientific and legal limits of takes to ensure marine mammals don’t become collateral damage in the senseless rush to industrialize the ocean,” said Dr. Stern.