(Oil & Gas 360) – The federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has finalized its plan to add nearly 50% more public lands to generate more solar energy.
The agency’s Western Solar Plan, which first targeted 22 million acres across Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah in its original plan in 2012, has been expanded to 31 million acres with the addition of Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington and Wyoming. The total acreage across the 11 states comprises about half the acreage of Michigan.
The Plan is touted as part of the Biden administration’s Investing in America agenda, which includes the goal of achieving 100% clean electricity on the US grid by 2035. A spokesman for the administration said Executive Order 14008, Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad, is being applied by the administration to improve federal permitting for solar and other renewable projects. Earlier this year, the BLM achieved its goal of permitting more than 25 gigawatts of clean energy projects on public lands.
Permitting clarity has long been a political football and a source of countless court cases.
The BLM, which operates under the Department of Interior, manages 261 million surface acres and 700 million acres of subsurface mineral estate. It manages more land than any other federal agency, most in Western states, including Alaska.
It emphasizes multiple-use management, which means balancing various interests such as recreation, grazing, timber, and mineral extraction.
While the BLM’s mission states that the agency “sustains the health, diversity, and productivity of the public lands for the use and enjoyment of present and future generations,” oil and gas operators and mining interests have long expressed concern and frustration with actions by the agency, such as canceled lease sales, cumbersome regulations, and overlapping authorities, that operators say violate the BLM’s productivity aspect of its mission. Those interests often find themselves squaring off with environmental groups in court.
The National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) and the Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLMPA) have both long been attacked by those challenging the BLM to fulfill its productivity mandate as part of its stated mission. Reform efforts have been unsuccessful.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration says solar accounts for about five and half percent of the country’s energy mix.
By Jim Felton for oilandgas360.com
