Department of Interior Acts To Streamline Permitting of Solar Projects on Public Lands

The Department of Interior recently announced plans to fast-track development of solar energy on public lands. Environmentalists and some members of Congress, however, are skeptical that Interior will take the environmental impacts of the projects fully into account, setting up possible future battles under NEPA.

Interior’s Directive

In Secretarial Order No. 3285 (June 29, 2009), Interior Secretary Ken Salazar set aside more than 670,000 acres for twenty-four “solar energy study areas” in Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah. These lands are to be “withdrawn from settlement, sale, location, or entry under general land laws,” (but still open to the mineral leasing laws) for up to two years while studies are conducted to determine whether to set them aside for solar use for twenty years.[1]

A “Solar Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement,” (“Solar PEIS”) will be prepared, with funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (H.R. 1), to evaluate the most favorable areas within solar zones in which to site solar projects. BLM’s Notice says the agency is seeking to: 1) facilitate near-term utility-scale solar energy development on public lands, 2) minimize potential environmental, social, and economic impacts, 3) provide the solar industry flexibility in proposing and developing solar energy projects including location, facility size, and technology, 4) optimize existing transmission corridors, and 5) standardize the authorization process for solar energy development on BLM-managed lands.[2]

New applications for siting within the solar zones will be processed under the Solar PEIS, and companies proposing solar projects may, once the Solar PEIS is complete, “tier” their projects’ environmental impact statement to the Solar PEIS in order to comply with NEPA.[3] Interior already has thirty-four applicants for solar projects within the zones and a total of 155 applications for solar projects on BLM lands. The department has reassured applicants that it will continue processing already-received applications both within and outside the zones while the Solar PEIS takes place.[4]

The solar zones to be studied were identified based on the preliminary results of California’s Renewable Energy Transmission Initiative, the Western Governor’s Association Western Renewable Energy Zone and Transmission Study, and existing BLM resource information. Interior excluded from consideration any lands within the National Landscape Conservation Systems, lands with threatened or endangered species or critical habitat designations, backcounty by-ways, areas of known Tribal concern or known high cultural site density, and lands excluded from serving as right-of-ways in BLM’s land-use plans. According to Interior, the solar energy zones were selected based on “excellent solar resources, suitable slope, proximity to roads and transmission lines or designated corridors, and containing at least 2,000 acres of BLM-administered public lands.”[5] Interior has made maps of the selected lands available to the public, which has 90 days to comment.[6]

Environmental Concerns

Several concerns related to the size and permanence of solar projects have been voiced by environmental groups and by some members of Congress.[7] In the Senate, subcommittee Chairwoman Dianne Feinsten (D-Calif.) noted that one proposed project in California would fence-off fifteen square miles. She plans to introduce legislation to protect more than 600,000 acres of California desert currently being considered for renewable energy projects.[8] Another Senator, Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) warned against “renewable energy sprawl.”[9]

To address these concerns, Senate appropriators included a provision in the committee report accompanying Interior’s appropriations bill that directs the Department and the Forest Service to, within 180 days, submit a report on the criteria for siting renewable energy projects. The report must include a detailed strategic plan on how the agencies will coordinate their development, an analysis on the useful life of renewable energy sites, and how the infrastructure will be removed when it is no longer functional.

Conclusion

Solar project developers should monitor the department’s progress on the Solar PEIS and consider whether waiting for the expedited application process will, in the long run, ensure accelerated project completion.

For more information, please contact Alyssa Moir or any other member of Marten Law Group’s Climate Change and Sustainability Practice Group.