‘Definitely playing favorites:' Interior memo could strike dire blow to wind and solar projects
'The president and Secretary Burgum will then be responsible for raising electricity prices on every state in this country because that will be the end result of that kind of abuse of permitting,' he said. 'I would warn them if they create this as a precedent and it survives, a future administration could play the same game with oil and gas pipelines and leases.'
The department's new policy requires Burgum's office to weigh in on virtually every aspect of or permit for solar and wind projects with a nexus to Interior. That includes siting, navigating threats to endangered species, road access and right-of-way permissions.
'There are some projects — particularly in the West because that's mostly where you're going to see this Interior footprint — that are going to be directly impacted by this, significantly impacted by this,' said Walter McLeod, managing director of Monarch Strategic Ventures, which finances solar and battery storage projects.
Those steps would ensnare a massive amount of projects, said Ted Boling, a partner at law firm Perkins Coie who spent decades working on permitting at Interior and the White House Council on Environmental Quality.
Projects that begin on private land but must cross public land — such as transmission lines that connect solar and wind to other power lines carrying electricity to populated areas — require authorization from Interior's Bureau of Land Management, he said. Transmission projects, which can span hundreds of miles, that cross national wildlife refuges on Interior-managed land may also need Burgum's approval, Boling added.
Some companies and clean energy advocates worried the directive would slow solar and wind approvals to a crawl by creating a bottleneck at Burgum's office. The memo outlining the new marching orders referenced several executive orders that were designed to either elevate fossil fuel production or stymie renewable power.
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