The US government opens up more federal lands for solar – to 31 million acres

Photo courtesy of Tom Brewster/BLM California

The Biden administration has finalized a plan to expand solar on 31 million acres of federal lands in 11 western states.

More federal lands for solar

The proposed updated Western Solar Plan is a roadmap for Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) governance of solar energy proposals and projects on public lands.

It bumps up the acreage from the 22 million acres it recommended in January, and this plan adds five additional states – Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming – to the six states – Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah – analyzed in the original plan.

It would make the public lands available for potential solar development, putting solar farms closer to transmission lines or on previously disturbed lands and avoiding protected lands, sensitive cultural resources, and important wildlife habitats.

This announcement is part of President Biden’s Investing in America agenda, which the White House is working to accelerate ahead of the November election. The Investing in America agenda is a government initiative focused on boosting the US economy by investing in infrastructure, clean energy, and job creation.

BLM surpassed its goal of permitting more than 25 gigawatts (GW) of clean energy projects on public lands earlier in 2024. It’s permitted 29 GW of projects on public lands – enough to power over 12 million homes. The Biden administration set the goal to achieve 100% clean electricity on the US grid by 2035.

Ben Norris, vice president of regulatory affairs at the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) said in response to the BLM developments:

While we’re still reviewing the details, we’re pleased to see that BLM listened to much of the solar industry’s feedback and added 11 million acres to its original proposal.

While this is a step in the right direction, fossil fuels have access to over 80 million acres of public land, 2.5 times the amount of public land available for solar.

One of the fastest ways to decarbonize our grid is to greenlight well-planned clean energy development on federal lands, and the improvements to this environmental review document will certainly help.

Electrek’s Take

The Biden administration is racing to catalyze all the clean energy projects it can between now and the November election, and the latest iteration of the Western Solar Plan is a big step. It’s designed to alleviate the permitting bottleneck of solar development on public lands while preserving protected lands and habitats. Plus, a lot more land, of course.

White House deputy chief of staff Natalie Quillian said in an interview [via Reuters]: “We’ve been really pushing ourselves to use our executive authority wherever possible to improve the federal permitting process.”

Proposed projects will still undergo site-specific environmental review and public comment, as they always should, but this is welcome news for spurring US renewables growth because we’re still not going fast enough.

Read more: The US just beat its goal to permit 25 GW of clean energy by 2025

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