On September 4, 2013, the Department of the Interior held its second competitive lease sale for renewable energy in federal waters. The sale consisted of 112,799 acres of Virginia’s Outer Continental Shelf, and brought in more than $1.6 billion in revenue. The first lease sale took place in July, and auctioned 164,750 acres of land off the coast of Rhode Island. That sale was won by Deepwater Wind New England, LLC, which had the high bid of $3.8 million.

The increase in sales is part of President Obama’s Climate Action Plan, which he released earlier this summer, an all-of-the-above energy strategy to diversify America’s energy resources. 

Sources: The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, the Department of the Interior, the White House