WASHGINTON, July 21, 2016 - Lawmakers
from both sides of the aisle are using the waning days of Congress to push for
a bill promoting renewable energy development on public lands.
The goal of H.R. 2663, the Public
Land Renewable Energy Development Act (PLREDA) of 2015, is to put wind and
solar energy on an equal footing with oil, gas and geothermal energy, which
have their own federal laws that encourage leasing on public lands, bringing in
billions of dollars to states and local governments in royalties.
But solar and wind developers must
apply for rights of way to place their projects on public lands and go through
what is an often-lengthy review process under the National Environmental Policy
Act (NEPA).
The bill, a version of which has
been introduced in each Congress since 2011, would require the Bureau of Land
Management to establish priority areas on BLM lands for geothermal, wind and
solar development. It also would require BLM to come up with a royalty rate and
system to distribute revenues to states and other leasing authorities.
At a House Natural Resources
subcommittee hearing last week,
the panel’s chairman, Doug Lamborn, R-Colo., marshalled the opinions of a
county supervisor and representatives of two environmental groups and a
renewable energy company in support of the bill.
“In public lands counties, the
single greatest barrier to project development is the protracted federal
permitting process, which is simply not an issue on private lands,” said Buster
Johnson, vice chairman of the Mohave County Board of Supervisors in Arizona.
The fifth-largest county in the
United States, Mohave County is three-quarters federal tax-exempt land and has
“some of the highest solar and wind energy potential in the nation,” he told
the subcommittee on energy and mineral resources.
Johnson, who was also representing
the National Association of Counties, said counties like the legislation
because it requires that royalties generated from renewable energy projects on
federal land be shared -- 25 percent to the affected state, 25 percent to the
counties, 15 percent to the federal treasury, and 35 percent to a new fund –
the “Renewable Energy Resource Conservation Fund”, which the bill establishes
to mitigate the impacts of renewable development.
Under the current system, the oil
and gas royalty rate is set at 12.5 percent and the receipts generated are
split between the federal and state governments. Leases produced $1.8 billion in royalties for
states in fiscal 2015. Geothermal leases produce a lot
less – about $12 million per year, according to BLM.
Johnson said that recent studies
have found that with PLREDA in place, Mohave County would receive $519,375 in
royalty payments annually from existing renewable energy projects, and the
state of Arizona and its counties would receive nearly $4.6 million in new
royalty revenue.
“These amounts would only grow as
new projects come online,” Johnson said.
Steve Moyer of Trout Unlimited
told the committee that environmental groups like the legislation because it
would dedicate revenue to a conservation fund that could be used to clean up
abandoned mines and restore wildlife habitat.
Josh Nordquist, director of
business development for renewable energy company Ormat Technologies, said the
bill benefits geothermal by requiring BLM to establish priority areas for
renewable energy projects. It also would streamline the permitting process by
using BLM-prepared programmatic environmental impact statements as the
foundation for future development.
Instead of conducting a new review
under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the bill would require BLM
to “rely on the analysis in the programmatic (EIS) … to the maximum extent
practicable when analyzing the potential impacts of the project.”
Bill co-sponsor Rep. Alan
Lowenthal, D-Calif., who called for a hearing in October
on renewable energy issues on public lands, said time is running out for the
legislation. “It’s happening so late in this Congress, which limits the time to
advance this bill through the committee and the full House,” he said.
Rep. Paul Gosar,
R-Ariz., introduced the bill last year. It has 68 co-sponsors, 35
Democrats and 33 Republicans. A companion Senate measure was the subject of a
hearing June 9, 2015.
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