The Biden administration unveiled a policy Tuesday evening making it cheaper for green energy developers to build and maintain projects on federal lands.
Interior Secretary Deb Haaland announced the federal government would reduce rents and fees charged for wind and solar projects on public lands during a roundtable Tuesday with U.S. and state officials in Nevada. [bold, links added]
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) expects the policy to reduce rents and fees by more than 50% when implemented.
“Clean energy projects on public lands have an important role to play in reducing our nation’s greenhouse gas emissions and lowering costs for families,” Haaland said in a statement.
“The Bureau of Land Management continues to take bold steps to attract renewable energy investments on public lands in a way that is environmentally sound,” BLM Director Tracy Stone-Manning added.
“This will help support our clean energy economy by creating good-paying jobs, increasing our energy security, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.”
Meanwhile, the Department of the Interior (DOI) reduced the land available for oil and gas leasing by 80% and increased royalty rates for leases by 50% in April.
The average price of gasoline nationwide surged to $4.67 a gallon Wednesday, an all-time record, AAA data showed.
The bipartisan Energy Act of 2020 authorized the BLM to alter rents and fees for green energy to promote solar and wind development, the DOI said.
The legislation also required the DOI to permit at least 25 gigawatts (GW) of wind, solar and geothermal project capacity by 2025.
“The new rate reduction policy for solar and wind, as well as the BLM’s prioritization of applications, will incentivize industry to partner in responsible solar and wind development,” the DOI said.
The federal government approved 12 renewable energy projects on federal lands with a total capacity of 2.9 GW in 2021, Reuters reported.
The DOI projected it would collect more than $4.6 billion in rents and royalty fees from renewable energy projects in 2022, according to its proposed the fiscal year 2023 budget.
In addition, Haaland said the BLM would establish five Renewable Energy Coordination Offices throughout the west to handle the increased number of applications for solar and wind projects on federal lands.
Read rest at Daily Caller
This might sound wonderful to some, but what’s never understood and certainly never explained is the effects this has on coal and nuclear power generators.
As we saw in an article recently, a nuclear plant has just closed in Michigan because it can’t afford to keep operating. The same is happening to coal power stations by the way. That will cause blackouts in the near future because all the renewables in the state cannot replace that lost capacity.
In California, the same thing is happening and people are leaving the state.
It seems to me we have lost the ability to think sensibly for the future. We are slowing inflicting self harm on our communities will this renewable nonsense and climate change dogma.
Reality is going to bite when the lights go out or the heater won’t come on in winter. In some circumstances, this could be life-threatening.
And its the Tax Payers Money Biden dips his hands into the Public Money Bin and comes out with a handful of our money