Critics are demanding major changes to the Biden administration’s proposal to designate millions of acres of federal lands across the West as suitable for commercial-scale solar energy applications.
The Bureau of Land Management said it has received 162 formal administrative protests to the proposed updated Western Solar Plan.
BLM in August proposed designating 31 million acres of rangelands as priority areas for solar projects with a streamlined permitting process. The idea is to guide the solar power industry to lands that BLM has evaluated up front and determined to have high solar-power potential and low natural resource conflicts.
BLM declined to identify the local governments, groups and individuals that filed the administrative protests, or to provide specific issues that are being challenged in the updated Western Solar Plan. All 162 protests will need to be evaluated and the concerns raised in each one answered in a formal protest report before BLM signs off on a final plan. That report is expected by the end of the year, BLM said.
