NOAA Hired an Anti-Wind Activist as Its Top Lawyer

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has hired a new general counsel who was, until recently, pursuing legal challenges to offshore wind farms on behalf of the fishing industry, Heatmap has learned.

NOAA’s Fisheries division, also known as the National Marine Fisheries Service, regulates species protection within U.S. waters. Activists have sought to persuade the Trump administration to review the division’s previous and future approvals for offshore wind projects that interact with endangered marine life, which would be a huge win for the “wind kills whales” movement.

Enter Anne “Annie” Hawkins, NOAA’s new general counsel, who comes to the agency after serving for years as the executive director of the Responsible Offshore Development Alliance, an organization founded in 2017 that has fought offshore wind projects on behalf of the fishing industry. Hawkins stepped down as RODA’s executive director last fall, shortly after Trump won the presidential election.

RODA is involved in legal challenges against individual wind farms that receive their permits under the Biden administration. The organization boasts that it was the first fishing trade association to sue against approvals for the Vineyard Wind project in 2022, and earlier this month petitioned the Supreme Court to undo federal approvals for Vineyard Wind. RODA has been in the legal fight against the Revolution Wind and South Fork wind projects since last year, according to its website.

In 2019, Hawkins personally argued before Congress that the federal government’s approach to offshore wind development has “fundamental flaws” and called for greater attention to the “tradeoffs” associated with the sector.

“The rapid pace of offshore wind development, the lack of early and transparent engagement with fishing communities, and the sparse scientific record upon which to make informed decisions, have led to leasing and project design decisions being made without effectively minimizing impacts on our sustainable commercial fisheries,” she told a House Natural Resources subcommittee according to testimony from the hearing.

RODA has at times engaged with NOAA and the primary offshore leasing agency, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, in a collaborative posture. In 2019, RODA signed a 10-year memorandum of understanding with NOAA and BOEM to improve scientific collaboration across aquaculture interests and government permitting staff. Together, RODA and the agencies also held a virtual workshop on scientific research into the interaction of offshore wind projects with commercial fisheries.

On the other hand, researchers at Brown University prominently listed RODA in a map released in 2023 detailing different key organizations in the American anti-offshore wind activist movement.

NOAA didn’t announce this hire with a press release, and RODA’s website still listed Hawkins as an adviser as of this morning. I first learned about this hire today via email from an environmentalist who told me the news as though it were a rumor, something the agency hadn’t confirmed. NOAA’s webpage for the general counsel role lists the position as still vacant as of today.

I then discovered that NOAA’s public employee directory had been quietly updated on March 18 to list Hawkins as the new general counsel, making her the lead figure for all NOAA legal activities, and she is now listed on NOAA’s organizational chart. Hawkins’ LinkedIn states she began as general counsel in February.

I’ve reached out to NOAA for comment on Hawkins’ apparent hiring and will update the story if we hear from the agency.