Thursday, January 22, 2009

Renewable energy permitting process streamlined

Four years ago, Congress passed the Energy Policy Act, which called for the development of 10,000 megawatts of non-hydropower, renewable energy projects on public lands by the year 2015. Last week, the Bureau of Land Management authorized the establishment of special offices in Wyoming and other Western states to expedite that renewable energy development on federal public lands. BLM officials said Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne issued a Secretarial Order on Friday that will allow the agency to establish coordination offices in Wyoming, Arizona, California and Nevada.
LM officials said those are the states where the greatest interest has been shown in renewable energy projects, most notably wind power projects. The offices will accelerate the permitting of wind, solar, biomass and geothermal energy projects, along with needed electrical transmission facilities, on BLM-managed lands, officials said in a release....

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