In a Small Fish, a Large Lesson In Renewable Energy's Obstacles

President Barack Obama wants to boost the nation's production of energy from the sun as part of an effort to double renewable power generation in three years. Among the obstacles to Mr. Obama's agenda: the imperiled Devil's Hole pupfish. Patrick Putnam is a field manager for the U.S. Bureau of Land Management in southern Nevada. His job is to help the government decide whether the dozens of solar-energy projects that companies have proposed building on federal land in his jurisdiction pose undue environmental risks. After reviewing some applications for as long as 18 months, Mr. Putnam's office hasn't approved any. He says his office hopes to make decisions on at least three by the end of 2010, but that will be "a monumental task." Across the West, companies that want to build renewable energy projects are rushing to stake claims on public land, hoping to grab federal subsidies and take advantage of state mandates that require utilities to obtain more power from renewable sources. The surge is straining the Bureau of Land Management, which is more accustomed to processing permit requests from oil and natural gas companies. The logjam highlights a dilemma for the Obama administration: how to speed the transition to a clean-energy economy -- a shift the president has promised will create millions of jobs -- without trampling the legacy of a previous generation of conservationists, who left in place federal laws and regulations designed to control exploitation of federal lands or protect the habitats of endangered species...WSJ