“Solar power is an important new source of renewable domestic energy. Done right, we can produce energy, generate jobs and conserve hunting and fishing on our public lands.”

Kate Zimmerman, Senior Policy Advisor for NWF

Photo by Flickr's Living Off Grid

“I’m directing my administration to allow the development of clean energy on enough public land to power 3 million homes,” the president declared in the State of the Union address on Tuesday evening.

Sounds great in theory, but how does he propose managing the complexity of both promoting such a land-intensive use and conserving vital fish and wildlife habitats?

Finally, a Plan

For the past three years the U.S. Department of Interior and Department of Energy have been developing a solar energy program for public lands in six Western states that can achieve both of those goals. Last year, the agencies unveiled an environmental review of the program and accepted public comments until last Friday. Now, these comments will lead to the implementation of a final solar program later this year – a roadmap for sustainable, environmentally responsible solar energy development.

At the heart of what it is a very complex proposal is a very simple idea – Solar Energy Zones (SEZs). These are areas of public land with high energy potential – accessible to transmission – that have been reviewed and determined to already be degraded or otherwise have low potential for negative impacts to wildlife, habitat, recreation, or other uses.

Sportsmen Speak on Solar

To better understand this planning process for appropriately locating and designing solar energy facilities, NWF helped pulled together sportsmen from across the nation last December near Las Vegas. This event clarified to policy makers the needs and concerns of hunters and anglers in this process, and set the stage for opportunities for sportsmen to engage as Solar Energy Zones are designated, giving them a seat at the table as plans are developed to mitigate the impact solar development on desert wildlife.

NWF Supports …

NWF wholeheartedly endorses the designation of Solar Energy Zones. The SEZs represent a new approach to meeting our clean energy goals in a wildlife-friendly manner – one that will avoid the fragmentation of important wildlife habitats that has occurred as a result of other commercial activities on public lands, such as oil and gas drilling. The best path going forward will guide development to identified public lands, consolidating related infrastructure and resulting in less total land disturbance. Needed clean energy can be built faster, cheaper, with less opposition from other public land users, and in a sustainable manner.

With some additional work to limit development outside the designated zones, exclude vital habitat and movement corridors for Desert bighorn sheep, elk, pronghorn, and Greater sage-grouse from development zones, and provide adequate mitigation for habitat losses, the proposed solar zoning framework represents the kind of initiatives NWF is pursuing in removing barriers from wildlife-friendly renewable energy.

Department of the Interior

•  The approval of this Administration’s 24^th and 25^th big renewable energy projects on public lands, the Sonoran Solar Energy Project (Arizona) and the Tule Wind Project (California), which together will provide 486 MW of clean electricity.
• The kickoff of a public comment period to collect information about the proposed route and environmental and commercial interest issues for the Atlantic Wind Connection, an undersea transmission line that has been proposed from New Jersey down to Virginia, with the goal of removing a key barrier to offshore wind energy generation far off our coasts.

It will be a huge challenge to replace fossil-energy sources at a both a large enough scale and at a fast enough pace to protect the wildlife and habitat we love from irreversible global warming impacts. We know that large-scale wind and solar energy projects, on both public and private lands and waters, will have to contribute to the solution, along with energy efficiency, solar roofs, and other actions.  So National Wildlife Federation has called on President Obama to have the courage to rapidly pursue big clean energy projects while simultaneously requiring wildlife-friendly approaches to development, preventing development in sensitive habitat, and driving clean energy to the lowest conflict locations.

Secretary Salazar’s announcements hold evidence that we can continue to be both smart and swift with clean energy.  An offshore transmission backbone should allow offshore wind energy to reach more of the public, and building the line far offshore will them make it more cost effective to place wind projects well clear of known migratory bird pathways much closer to shore.  Meanwhile, the environmental review process for the Sonoran Solar Project resulted in suggestions from local stakeholders and led the project proponent to reduce the project’s footprint by 1,600 acres and reduce the project’s water consumption by 98%!

Sea turtles off the Atlantic coast and our cherished Western landscapes are threatened by the increasingly intense impacts of climate change.  With wind and solar energy making up only around 3 percent of the nation’s overall electricity generation, NWF will keep leaning on decision-makers to protect our wildlife and habitat from carbon pollution by taking bold steps forward on clean energy.  And we’ll keep demanding the strongest standards and smartest planning to avoid negative impacts of clean energy development.

Help protect bighorn sheep by sending a message to the Department of Interior, urging it to move forward with wildlife-friendly solar energy development.