Secretary Salazar Pledges to Open Four Renewable
Energy Permitting Offices, Create Renewable Energy Teams
May 06, 2009 -- Interior Department Documents and Publications/ContentWorks
To expedite production of renewable energy on public lands while protecting
land, water, and wildlife, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar today
pledged to create four Renewable Energy Coordination Offices, one each in
California, Nevada, Wyoming, and Arizona, along with smaller renewable
energy teams in New Mexico, Idaho, Utah, Colorado and Oregon.
"At no time in our history has the need for a new energy policy been so
urgent," Salazar told members of the American Wind Energy Association at the
WINDPOWER 2009 Conference - the largest annual wind energy industry event in
the United States.
"We import more than two-thirds of our oil, costing us hundreds of billions
of dollars a year. Unemployment is at eight and a half percent. Carbon
emissions are rising. Our national security is threatened. And countries
like China and India are ready to cash in by leading the global clean energy
economy."
"We must lead the clean energy revolution," Salazar said. "With millions of
new jobs at stake, this is an opportunity America can't afford to miss."
The renewable energy offices and teams, which will cut red tape by
expediting applications, processing, reviews and permitting of renewable
energy projects, are one of several initiatives President Obama's has taken
in his first 100 days "to open our doors to wise, responsible renewable
energy production on our public lands," Salazar noted. Interior is investing
$41 million through the President's economic recovery plan to facilitate a
rapid and responsible move to large-scale production of renewables on Bureau
of Land Management land.
There is strong interest in renewable energy projects from partners in the
private sector and this investment will help Interior swiftly complete
reviews on the most ready-to-go renewable energy projects. Interior's Bureau
of Land Management has a backlog of some 200 solar energy applications and
more than 25 wind project applications in western states. Another 200
locations have been identified where applicants would like to begin site
testing for future wind projects.
Interior also has resolved long-standing federal jurisdictional questions
with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, enabling the Department to
establish the final regulations to facilitate offshore renewable energy
development. Companies with proposed projects finally have the certainty of
a logical permitting process. Dozens of applications to build offshore wind
farms, which were stacked up or stuck in red tape, can now move forward.
If the nation fully pursues its potential for wind energy on land and
offshore, Salazar estimated, wind can generate as much as 20 percent of U.S.
domestic electricity by 2030 and create a quarter-million jobs in the
process. Salazar estimated that of the wind projects currently proposed on
Bureau of Land Management lands, almost 1,400 megawatts of new capacity will
be ready for construction by the end of 2010 - enough to power more than
400,000 homes. He also estimated that more than 6,000 megawatts of proposed
solar power capacity - mostly in California, Arizona, and New Mexico - will
be ready to go in the same time frame. That is enough to power 1.8 million
homes.
With the economic recovery plan investments, Interior also will be able to
complete the reviews and permits for several new transmission projects so
they can be ready for construction by 2010. This new transmission
infrastructure can be part of a new national electrical supergrid that can
help move this clean power not just to the closest load center, but back and
forth across the country to areas of highest demand.
As steward of one-fifth of the nation's land and 1.7 billion acres of ocean,
Interior has long had a mandate to support responsible oil, gas, and coal
development. Producing these conventional resources on public lands must and
will continue. And Interior will continue to find better ways to develop and
use these resources, including through carbon capture and sequestration and
other advanced coal technologies, Salazar said.
But the Department now is also opening the way for solar, wind, biomass, and
geothermal projects in appropriate areas of our public lands. Americans have
an estimated 206 gigawatts of wind energy potential on public lands in the
West. An estimated 2,900 gigawatts of solar energy potential in the
southwest. And an estimated 1,000 gigawatts of wind energy potential in
waters off the Atlantic coast alone.
A clean energy economy also means new jobs and economic development for
rural America, Salazar noted. "Rural communities are on the leading edge of
the renewable energy frontier. In Colorado, where I'm from, we're adding
thousands of jobs at new wind turbine manufacturing plants in places like
Pueblo, Brighton, and Windsor. Ranchers across the eastern plains are
earning extra money as wind farms spring to life. And in my native San Luis
Valley - one of the poorest areas of the country - a new solar farm has
brought hope for a brighter economic future."
Secretary's remarks are at
http://www.doi.gov/secretary/speeches/050509speech.html
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