Last January, a week after he became president, Joe Biden suspended oil and gas leasing on public lands, pending a full Interior Department review. That suspension was put on hold by a federal court in June after 14 states sued to overturn it.
Now, the Biden administration is trying to open up federal lands for energy—but this time it’s only renewable energy such as wind and solar. Write Nichola Groom and Valerie Volcovici for Reuters:
“The Biden administration plans to make federal lands cheaper to access for solar and wind power developers after the clean power industry argued in a lobbying push this year that lease rates and fees are too high to draw investment and could torpedo the president’s climate change agenda.”
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“The push for easier access to vast federal lands also underscores the renewable energy industry’s voracious need for new acreage: Biden has a goal to decarbonize the power sector by 2035, a target that would require an area bigger than the Netherlands for the solar industry alone, according to research firm Rystad Energy.”
Image of wind turbine above is by Lukas Bieri from Pixabay.