These federal rules are supposed to help solar power. Critics say they would do the opposite.

In a landmark announcement this week, President Barack Obama joined with the leaders of Canada and Mexico to pledge that North America will get half of its electricity from climate-friendly energy sources by 2025, in an effort to slow global warming. But in California, renewable energy developers are wondering whether Obama's actions will live up to his words. Over the last few months, solar and wind industry groups have been fighting federal regulations they say would make it difficult if not impossible to build clean energy projects on public lands in the California desert, home to some of the state's strongest sunlight and most powerful wind. If the new regulations are finalized as planned later this year, developers say, the United States could lose a major source of relatively cheap clean energy, and California could be forced to meet its own climate goals by buying more solar and wind power from out of state. Federal officials and environmental groups have rejected most of those criticisms as baseless...more