With fanfare, the Biden administration announced its final approval Tuesday for Vineyard Wind, marking a major milestone for the first industrial-scale offshore wind project in the country that grew its roots partly on Martha’s Vineyard.

In a press release, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland and Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo announced just after lunchtime Tuesday that the 800-megawatt wind farm had been granted a Record of Decision by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, signaling final approval for the project.

“A clean energy future is within our grasp in the United States,” Secretary Haaland said in a press release.

“We can fight the climate crisis, while creating high-paying jobs and strengthening our competitiveness at home and abroad,” Secretary Raimondo said.

On the drawing board for four years, the Vineyard Wind I project will build 84 turbines about 12 miles south of the Vineyard, aiming to generate electricity for more than 400,000 homes and businesses in the commonwealth, also creating jobs and reducing carbon emissions.

Vineyard Wind is a joint venture between Avangrid Renewables, a subsidiary of AVANGRID Inc., and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners.

The project is on track to be completed in 2023.

Since 2017 it has gone through an exhaustive public review process at the federal, state and local levels.

A massive final environmental impact statement for the project was approved last month. Mitigations along the way have included protection measures for endangered right whales, funding to compensate fishermen for potential loss of revenue and gear, and protection of cultural and historical areas of interest.

“Today’s Record of Decision is not about the start of a single project, but the launch of a new industry,” said Vineyard Wind CEO Lars T. Pedersen in a press release Tuesday. “Receiving this final major federal approval means the jobs, economic benefits and clean energy revolution associated with the Vineyard Wind 1 project can finally come to fruition. It’s been a long road to get to this point, but ultimately, we are reaching the end of this process with the strongest possible project.”

Headquartered in New Bedford, Vineyard Wind has long had a partnership with Vineyard Power, the nonprofit Island energy cooperative. A community benefits component of Vineyard Wind’s early bidding application for offshore federal lease areas helped thrust the project to the head of the pack in the highly competitive, multi-billion-dollar race to build offshore wind farms in the U.S.

The project was nearly threatened to be derailed a year and a half ago by the Trump administration, but got back onto a fast track after the November 2020 election.

A broad coalition that represents the fishing industry quickly released a statement Tuesday condemning the decision.

“BOEM continues to abdicate its responsibility to the public and leave all decision making to large, multinational corporations,” said the statement from the Responsible Offshore Development Alliance said. “This decision . . . . includes effectively no mitigation measures to offset impacts to critical ocean ecosystems and commercial fisheries.”

But in statements issued Tuesday, an array elected leaders had only laudatory remarks.

“The era of American offshore wind is no longer on the horizon — it’s here, now, off the coast of Massachusetts, and the answer to America’s energy future is blowing in the offshore wind,” said U.S. Sen. Edward Markey.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren called the decision “a bold step forward towards fighting the climate crisis.”

Congressman Bill Keating said: “What a difference today is from the last four years.”