Gains made in the last four years to build dozens of renewable energy projects on public lands and create a regulatory framework for offshore wind production in the United States could be stymied by the large federal budget cuts scheduled to begin Friday as a result of the so-called sequester, outgoing Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar said Tuesday.

Speaking before a crowd of about 300 gathered at the opening of the Offshore Wind Power USA conference in Boston, Salazar said the effect of the cuts would be akin to an “almost 10 percent cut across the Department of Interior for this fiscal year” -- but shoehorned into the next seven months.