What is a Community Benefits Agreement (CBA), and how does it relate to offshore wind?

A Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) is an agreement entered into by a developer and a community to ensure that local community members directly benefit from development in their area and to help address concerns. CBAs have been used for decades in combination with large-scale development and can take many different forms, ranging from funds to support local services to direct investments in infrastructure. 
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The Biden Administration has specifically advanced the use of CBAs to support the offshore wind industry. During the auction to lease space for the offshore wind energy areas, the developers were given permission to use 5% of their bid credits for local CBAs (1) — a strong incentive from the Federal government for wind energy developers to enter into CBAs. The agreements are initiated early into the project development process to provide economic empowerment (2) to local communities. These CBAs prioritize those communities near existing and new energy investments (8).

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In addition to those with the offshore wind developers, there would be many other opportunities for CBAs associated with the Humboldt offshore wind project, including development of the heavy lift marine terminal and new transmission infrastructure. Essentially, any large-scale development associated with offshore wind could be paired with a CBA in order to ensure that the local community benefits from the proposed project and that certain protections or operational commitments are codified in legally binding agreements. The Redwood Region Community Resilience (CORE) Hub (3) has been working with a network of local partners to develop community priorities surrounding CBAs and other commitments. You can view their initial investment priorities here (4).

There have been several examples of community benefits given to those who host offshore wind energy projects on the United States East Coast. The Wind Energy Community Benefits Guide (5) explains the advantages and decision making processes relating to community benefit agreements.

Some tools and mechanisms (7) that are included in CBAs involve those apart of the project's labor. Project Labor Agreements (PLA) are agreements made for discussing working conditions during the construction phase of the project. Common examples in a PLA include discussing working and hiring terms for unions and contractors. Another mechanism in CBAs are Host Community Agreements (HCA). These community agreements are between developers and local government entities that focus on topics such as monetary benefits, local infrastructure improvements, and environmental provisions.

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Click here to read a report from Berkeley Law about CBAs and offshore wind (6).