The U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has initiated a joint assessment with the Department of Energy (DOE) to study the environmental, social and economic impacts associated with solar energy development on BLM-managed public land in six western States: Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah.
The joint programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) will also evaluate a number of management strategies to determine which presents the best approach for the agencies to adopt in terms of mitigating potential impacts and facilitating solar energy development.
The assessment will be used to adopt consistent measures for solar energy development to help expedite environmental analysis for site-specific projects in the future.
"Preparing a programmatic EIS is a necessary first step in evaluating to what extent public lands with high solar energy potential may be able to help meet the Nation’s need for renewable energy," said BLM Director Jim Caswell. "Scoping is a crucial part of ensuring that any solar energy program would take into account environmental and socio-economic impacts while allowing the Nation to realize tremendous benefits in terms of energy availability, reliability and security."
During work on the PEIS, the BLM said it will focus attention on the 125 applications already received for rights-of-way for solar energy development, while deferring new applications until after completion of the statement. The 125 existing applications are for land covering almost one million acres and with the potential to generate 70 billion watts of electricity, or enough to power 20 million average American homes.
The PEIS will establish a process for accepting future applications, possibly through a competitive process, which is likely to attract companies with the experience and resources necessary to quickly deploy solar energy projects.
A Notice of Intent published in today’s Federal Register opened a public comment period on the scope of the PEIS.
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