How bad is the partisan rancor in Congress? So bad that even a hearing Monday on a bipartisan bill to speed development of renewable generation on federal lands was marred by sniping between Republicans and Democrats over the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

The hearing of the House Natural Resources Committee’s Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources was on the Public Land Renewable Energy Development Act (PLREDA). Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) has been pushing the bill for 10 years, along with — since 2019 — California Democrat Mike Levin.

After parts of the bill were included in the Energy Act of 2020, Gosar and Levin hoped to get the remainder over the finish line this year. But last week, Levin reintroduced the bill by himself, telling Gosar he would not permit him to be an original co-sponsor (H.R. 3326). Gosar responded by introducing the bill under his name.

Natural Resources Committee Chairman Raúl M. Grijalva (D. Ariz.) noted that Gosar’s bill is identical to Levin’s. “So we know that we agree on the policy. But it’s important to note the attack on the Capitol was a threat to our democracy. The ongoing refusal to accept the results of the presidential election is a threat to our democracy. The ongoing efforts to invalidate the election results in my home state of Arizona is a threat to democracy.”

Grijalva said he planned to cosponsor Levin’s version but promised to hold a hearing on Gosar’s as well.

Disturbing ‘Precedent’

Rep. Pete Stauber (R-Minn.), ranking member of the subcommittee, said the Democrats had “strong-armed” Gosar to take credit for the legislation.

“I find it insulting,” said Gosar, whose Twitter feed is topped with a photo of former President Donald Trump and features video of his appearance at an “America First” rally last week with firebrand Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.).

“Regardless of the wide gulf between Republicans and Democrats here, we know there’s room for bipartisanship. The Public Land Renewable Energy Development Act was at the top of the list,” Stauber said, calling the Democrats’ actions a “disturbing … precedent.”

However, two other Democrats, Rep. Betty McCollum (D.-Minn.) and Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) said there was nothing new about such partisan gamesmanship. “It’s also happened to me,” McCollum said.

25 GW Goal

PLREDA would direct the Department of Interior to establish priority areas on federal lands for the development of geothermal, solar and wind energy and create a program to improve coordination of federal permitting procedures. The bill also would provide host counties with increased revenues from such projects.

The Energy Act of 2020 directed Interior’s Bureau of Land Management to create Renewable Energy Coordination Offices (RECOs) and to authorize the production of at least 25 GW of geothermal, solar and wind energy capacity by the end of 2025.

BLM currently hosts less than half that amount, including 36 wind projects totaling more than 2,900 MW, 37 solar projects over 7,000 MW and 47 geothermal projects totaling 2,500 MW, said BLM Deputy Director Nada Culver, who told the committee the bill “aligns” with the Biden administration’s goals.

Culver said BLM is considering updating the Solar Energy Zones that designated 285,000 acres for development in 2012, and the West-wide Energy Corridors that were designated in 2009 to facilitate pipelines and electric transmission.

She said BLM has identified another 19 million acres of public lands with solar energy potential outside the solar zones in California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Utah. BLM also manages more than 20 million acres in 11 Western states that have been identified with wind energy potential.

H.R. 3326 would define public lands as either “priority areas” preferred for renewable energy development, “variance areas” that are potentially available and “exclusion areas” not suitable for development.

The bill would require Interior to update the categorizations in the final programmatic environmental impact statements (PEIS) for geothermal (issued October 2008), solar (July 2012), and wind (July 2005) and to review the categories every 10 years.

The bill also sets a new revenue distribution structure for receipts from solar and wind development on public lands, with 25% each going to the states and counties involved. Another 25% would go toward funding BLM’s renewable energy program, and 25% would be deposited in a new Renewable Energy Resource Conservation Fund.

Also testifying in favor of the bill Monday were Virinder Singh, vice president of regulatory and legislative affairs for EDF Renewables; Kate Miller, director of government affairs for Trout Unlimited; Paul Thomsen, vice president of business development for geothermal developer Ormat Technologies (NYSE:ORA); and San Bernardino County Supervisor Dawn Rowe, representing the National Association of Counties.

Trout Unlimited’s Miller said while her group was pleased to see some provisions of PLREDA enacted as part of the Energy Act of 2020, it was “disappointed that the heart of the bill was left behind.”

“The bill before the committee today would carry those key provisions forward, including provisions on updating the upfront planning process for solar, wind and geothermal energy development and the revenue sharing program that will support responsible development of renewable energy resources on public lands in a way that invests in local communities and in fish and wildlife resources,” she said. “Given the history of broad and bipartisan support for this bill, as well as its legislative record and all of the stakeholders anxious to realize its benefits, I implore you to please work together to advance these provisions through the House.”

Time for an Update

EDF’s Singh cited research finding that the U.S. will need to increase its annual deployment of renewable energy by two to 3.5 times the current annual rate to meet climate goals, or about 60 GW annually over the next decade.

He said only 6.2% of large-scale solar projects and less than 1% of installed wind capacity are on federal lands. “We clearly need to do more to make federal lands relevant to our clean energy future,” he said.

Singh praised the bill’s requirement to update the 2012 solar PEIS and 2005 wind PEIS by adding new priority areas. “In terms of solar project design and technology innovation, 2012 is a long time ago. For example, new solar panel technology can capture more solar insolation and convert it to useful energy, and do so at lower cost, thus allowing for areas of less insolation to be economic today compared to 2012,” he said.

With new transmission upgrades “transmission flows have changed sufficiently … to warrant revisiting priority zones relative to available transmission,” he added.

The 2012 solar PEIS included 19 million acres of variance lands, with less than 300,000 acres of priority areas.

“The thresholds to cross to develop on variance lands are very high,” he said. “One must show that priority areas are not an alternative, address 25 variance factors … and face evaluation of approximately 400 programmatic design features, as prescribed in the solar PEIS.”

He also called for revisiting how BLM determines the acreage rent fees for renewable developers.

“The acreage rent is based on National Agricultural Statistics Services values for agricultural lands, rather than appraisals of nearby private lands. However, the types of federal lands used for solar development, such as lands in the southern California desert and in southern Nevada, rarely have the characteristics of agricultural lands. As a result, the ‘fair market value’ estimate often is an overestimate,” he said.

Ormat’s Thomsen, representing the Geothermal Rising Policy Committee, an industry trade group, said BLM should allow geothermal developers to use “categorial exclusions” (CX) rather than requiring costlier environmental assessments (EAs) and environmental impact statements (EISs) for permitting “resource confirmation wells” used to determine the viability of geothermal sites. Requiring the lengthier, more costly EAs and EISs creates a “disproportionate permitting burden at the ‘front end’ of the project, before a revenue payback is guaranteed,” he said.

Allowing use of CX for exploration wells would “provide greater parity between geothermal and oil and gas, which is afforded a broad CX for exploration activities,” he said.