Biden-Harris Admin Announces More Efficient Approvals for Solar Developments on Western Public Lands

The Biden-Harris administration announced on Thursday the finalization of a plan for solar energy expansion on federal lands in the Western states of Arizona, Nevada, California, New Mexico, Utah, Colorado, Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, Oregon and Washington.

As part of President Joe Biden’s Investing in America agenda and a wider plan to decarbonize the power sector and fight climate change, the administration is accelerating project approvals for wind and solar farms and power transmission.

“We’ve been really pushing ourselves to use our executive authority wherever possible to improve the federal permitting process,” said Natalie Quillian, White House deputy chief of staff, in an interview, as Reuters reported.

The administration announced two new actions to help build more projects faster, a press release from The White House said.

The first is a roadmap, announced by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), to support the expansion of solar energy by improving siting and permitting processes on public lands, making them more efficient. It will steer projects toward areas with low land and wildlife conflicts and high solar potential, lessening burdens on solar developers.

BLM will make more than 31 million public lands acres available in the 11 western states for solar development to deliver green energy to millions of residences.

The second action involves the conditional approval by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) of a new rule to allow offsets creating clean air credits in Arizona’s Maricopa County.

“Companies with vehicle fleets can now generate credits by replacing or retrofitting diesel-burning vehicles with electric vehicles. Manufacturers or other new emitters can then purchase those credits to balance out their future emissions. This will allow the county, which is now a center of semiconductor manufacturing in the U.S., to continue to build semiconductor fabs essential to our nation’s future and ensure that residents continue to have clean air,” the press release said.

The EPA must approve state pollution reduction plans in Maricopa County — home to Arizona’s capital Phoenix — and other areas due to their elevated ozone emissions, reported Reuters.

The White House said Maricopa County has attracted investments associated with federal incentives from chip manufacturers. The credits will help companies like Taiwan’s TSMC and Intel get started.

The time it takes to complete an environmental review has already been shortened, and the Biden-Harris administration said the new plan will further streamline the process.

“The Biden-Harris Administration has cut 6 months off the median time it takes for agencies to complete environmental impact statements, the most comprehensive form of environmental review, representing 16% in time savings compared to the previous Administration and we are continuing to make more improvements,” the White House said.