Obama’s Solar Power Plan for the California Desert

On Tuesday, the Obama administration released the first phase of a plan that will boost renewable energy in the solar-rich California desert while protecting millions of acres of sensitive land from development.

The land management plan, known as the Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan (DRECP), prescribes which federal and state lands in a 22.5-million-acre area of the California desert will be available for renewable energy development and which will be set aside to preserve the unique and valuable desert ecosystem.

The first phase of the plan, outlined in a final environmental impact statement released Tuesday by Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM), provides a 25-year blueprint for the management of 10 million acres of federally-owned public lands from Death Valley to San Diego County, spanning seven counties.  Phase two of the plan, which covers non-federal lands, is still under review.

“Using a landscape-level perspective, unprecedented collaboration and extensive public engagement, this phase of the Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan will facilitate clean energy development, creating new jobs while cutting carbon pollution,” said Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell in announcing the plan.  “This strategy provides effective protection and conservation for wildlife, recreation and cultural resources, while encouraging streamlined renewable energy development in the right places.”

The final plan for public lands covered by the DRECP is unprecedented in scope and nature — taking more than five years to complete and reflecting a collaborative effort on the part of multiple stakeholders, including the California Energy Commission and the Interior Department’s Fish and Wildlife Service and the BLM, as well as local and state agencies.

As part of the plan, the BLM has identified areas designated for conservation, renewable energy development, and recreation.  The DRECP identifies the best locations for renewable energy development to spur additional growth of clean energy resources and pave the way for a more sustainable future.

In particular, the BLM has established close to 388,000 of “Development Focus Areas,” which overlap with existing BLM Solar Energy Zones, as preference areas for renewable energy development due to their potential for renewable energy production, proximity to transmission, and reduced environmental impacts.  The BLM says that solar energy projects that are proposed in these Development Focus Areas will benefit from a streamlined permitting process because environmental surveying and analysis has already been conducted in these zones.

Read more at Obama’s Solar Power Plan for the California Desert