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StumbleLegislation would grant states revenue from clean-energy projects
Reid, Heller seek to change BLM policy on leasing solar sites
Saturday, July 17, 2010 | 2:01 a.m.
Harry Reid
Dean Heller
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Nevada could finally make some money off the dozens of giant solar arrays and wind farms planned for its deserts and mountain peaks if legislation introduced this week by Rep. Dean Heller and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid passes.
The Clean Energy, Community Investment and Wildlife Conservation Act would change the system for acquiring federal land for solar and wind developments from revolving around rights of way, a process originally intended for multiple-use applications such as grazing, off-road racing and transmission corridors, to a competitive lease auction.
The legislation calls for revenue sharing with home states and counties and for money to be set aside to preserve and enhance wild land near the developments.
A similar system has been in place for the geothermal industry since 2007.
The proposal to extend it to solar and wind is being hailed by sportsmen’s groups, but is being panned by Nevada officials for not going far enough.
Under the Reid-Heller plan, solar and wind developers would have to bid for leases on parcels made available by the Bureau of Land Management at an annual auction. The home state and county would each get 25 percent of the lease and royalty income over the project’s life. Another 15 percent would go toward funding BLM’s renewable energy offices, which process applications for developments, and the remaining 35 percent would go into a fund to aid habitat preservation and support recreational uses of nearby land.
The legislation would also protect the status of any renewable energy project that has a right-of-way application under BLM review or has completed paperwork to begin the review and public comment process required by the National Environmental Protection Act.
Those backing the legislation include Trout Unlimited, a conservation group dedicated to saving habitat and watersheds for sport fish.
Reid and Heller worked closely with Trout Unlimited and Nevada hunting clubs when amending previous proposals to include habitat conservation funds. Under the legislation, developers would still be required to set money aside to remediate the damage their projects do to the land if their developments are dismantled.
The group says those provisions are essential for balancing renewable development and hunting and fishing opportunities on federal land.
“Many sportsmen and women are understandably wary of large-scale projects, in light of the impacts we have seen from traditional oil and gas drilling,” Trout Unlimited President Chris Wood says. “The bills hit the mark in ensuring that we don’t allow energy production to diminish the productive capacity of the land.”
State Energy Director Jim Groth says the congressmen’s intentions are excellent, but he doesn’t think the bill goes far enough. He wants to see Nevada become the world leader in renewable energy, particularly solar, because the industry would create much-needed jobs and give the state the economic diversification it has long needed.
But the state won’t benefit from renewable development unless it has a greater stake in it, Groth says. More than 80 percent of Nevada land is controlled by the federal government. This unfairly puts the state at the mercy of the federal government, Groth says.
“These renewable energy programs should be fully released to the control of … Nevada, out of federal hands completely,” Groth says. “Then the state and counties would best determine the split of revenue potential and which business and development solicitation efforts should be engaged to attract developers, how wildlife mitigation efforts should be addressed, and all other land ownership and control issues.”
He has asked Congress to give the state 3 million acres of the prime solar zones under federal jurisdiction so it can create renewable energy development and manufacturing corridors.
He says it would “right the 150-year wrong in Nevada.”
“When are we going to get that the federal government does not deserve ‘revenue’ from the gross amount of land they illegitimately control in Nevada?” he says.
Groth says turning over the land to the state would allow it to match offers on manufacturing land being made by competitors such as Arizona.
“Arizona and New Mexico will kill us competitively in the renewable energy economy market, offering land considerations and public utility-based incentives to renewable manufacturing and generation developers,” he warns, noting a planned concentrating solar power manufacturing plant planned near Kingman, Ariz.
But the feds show no sign of giving over the land, even if they are willing to share most of the revenue.
It’s an issue the Nevada congressional delegation has been trying to push through for years.
This is at least the third time Nevada congressmen have proposed legislation that would extend royalties and lease income from all solar and wind projects to home states and counties.
Reid introduced in February 2009 the Clean Renewable Energy and Economic Recovery Act to extend the geothermal revenue-sharing scheme to solar and wind. When that legislation stalled, he and Sen. John Ensign introduced the Renewable Energy Permitting Act with the same provisions in May 2009. That bill, too, never made it to the Senate floor.
The latest bill is based on the terms of the American Solar Energy Pilot Leasing Act of 2010, which Reid and Heller introduced in June. That legislation sets aside an area of land in a BLM’s Solar Energy Study Areas in Lincoln County for a pilot of the lease auction and revenue-sharing plan.
The legislation calls for the Interior Department to select specific areas where the BLM will assess and review environmental conditions and determine which land ought to be leased.
The solar plots selected by the Interior secretary will likely all be within the 24 Solar Energy Study Areas, seven of which are in Nevada.
The concept of sending at least a portion of the revenue from energy projects to home states and counties comes from the money states receive from geothermal energy development.
Because of the drilling, geothermal energy has historically been classified as a mineral resource. As such, the income from geothermal leases on federal land are shared among the federal, state and local governments. Half the income goes to the home state, 25 percent to the home county and 25 percent to the BLM.
Nevada has received about $26 million just from lease sales on geothermal parcels. Home counties have collectively received about $13 million. Those figures don’t include annual rent and royalties payments, which vary depending on a project’s stage of development and lease terms.
Under current law, Nevada and home counties would get nothing from wind and solar land leases or royalties.
Because of differences in land value in rural counties across the country, the rental rates on BLM rights of way vary greatly, from $7.85 per acre in 2010 for Elko County to $3,138.86 per acre in Richmond County, N.Y., this year.
Most Nevada land, under existing rights-of-way leases, would be rented for less than $50 per acre in 2010, but spike in mining country. Rent in Storey County, for example, is $941.66 an acre this year while land in sun-rich Clark and Lincoln counties would be $94.17 and $15.69 an acre, respectively.
Under the proposed plan, the BLM would put the leases on the auction block, potentially raising the per-acre rent on the most valuable solar development sites significantly.
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We are all making sacrifices to displace coal and eventually (once we have electric vehicles), oil. We are not doing this like the old land rush or black gold mentality. Because of that, we all must make sacrifices, whether in paying extra for electricity or for incentives to have solar or in letting solar use our public land to provide these social goods. These leases should be free, and neither the Feds nor the states or locals should ask for their pound of flesh from a shared responsibility we are all shouldering together.
I know this is off topic but I would like the Las Vegas Sun to look at the AP article titled
"94 Charged for $251. Million Medicare Scam it is real interesting thanks.
Thank you Harry for continuing to fight to make these BLM resources provide revenue for Nevada.
I am not opposed to "green" business projects and jobs. I do have a few questions though:
Why are the incentives (tax breaks, credits, $$$) just for "green" energy jobs? If a person wants to bring a business to Nevada (regardless of what the business is) how come they don't get the same benefits/perks of the "green" business? Why does the fed. govt. "target" specific industries for help/assistance? It just seems that the playing field should be level for all businesses -- not just "green" business.
I would imagine that there are plenty of "strings" attached with these "green" projects also. I am guessing on this one but I would suspect that the project must be union built and when completed, union operated. If a "green" biz does not agree to union involvement, I would suspect the project never goes anywhere or there are major obstacles to overcome.
Any background would be appreciated from those on the "inside" of the "green" business world.
WHY DO THE 'CLONES' KEEP POSTING THAT
"we all must make sacrifices"
Hey, here's one for ya:
DROP OFF THE FACE OF THE EARTH.
I don't have to make 'sacrifices' for nobody, chump.
Every one of these 'clones' sits at a desk in D.C. and posts this crap on command and gets paid for it.
I've read through all of the Politico stories' posts and they make me want to wretch. These AREN'T people who actually live here IN Nevada.
THEY'RE 'POLITICO CLONES'. And PAID clones, at that.
HEY BABY, I'm on to ya, sitting in the back of your 'K' street D.C. office getting paid to pump up this HELD BACK and POLITICO TIMED 'legislation'.............
The reason the Feds back the green business is they want the social results implied by them.
Now it is also true that the US voters have a mixed record about such things - most express strong support for reducing CO2 and for gaining some vestige of energy self-sufficiency. But there is also a set of voters who either don't want these things or have a different preference for how to do them.
So if solar from this standpoint doesn't motivate you, I can see why you would disagree.
Ken Zweibel
The GWU Solar Institute
Washington, DC!
A desperation move by a corrupt senator to buy votes and save his bacon.
The feds relinquishing some control of confiscated state lands? Voluntarily cooperating with hunters, fisherman and other sporting groups? Sharing revenues?
After all these years, there can be no other explanation.
Sharron Angle says it will not be her business to bring jobs to Nevada. She's right and so are the previous posters here...the country was once run by BIG BUSINESS...and now that government wants to help the "small", American nobody's...We Want Our Country Back!. The way it was...run by Big Oil and Wall Street.
We were perfectly happy cutting taxes for the wealthy and adding the cost to future generations and now the stupid liberals want to help worthless unemployed "people".
Why do we not take a clue from Utah and take back say 50% of the land that the government holds in Nevada. Green is good but the number of long term jobs that it generates are minimal as compared to a clean coal plant. The cost of the materials that only harness eight to ten percnt of the energy are outrageous. The industry is ten to fifteen years from acyually producing a viable large scale system. How many acres will it take to generate 100kilo watts of power. a bunch, the government already controls the majority of Nevada land and now Reid and Heller want to give away the rest of it to California based union controled companies for pennies on the dollar. Coal is abundant and can be buned cleanly at much less cost. Nevada use a bit of common sense and create real jobs for Nevadans not out of state companies.
Large solar is about 15 c/kWh without subsidies. 10,000 MW are going in worldwide this year. Costs are dropping about 5%-10% per year. There is no such thing as clean coal.
But there is plenty of burning coal as usual under the smokescreen of "clean coal."
Good riddance to the badly mismanaged '00's.
Those thinking about long-term recovery, know the environment will be a big winner in the conversion to biofuels & biopower -- saw a cool site; Balkingpoints ; incredible satellite view of earth
Whatever happended to Obamas pledgeto clean coal technology? I've heard him pitch it a thousand times while running for pres? Another lie! After we spend a lot of borrowed money and create more union jobs that will have all these extra perks, the oil companies are going to lower te cost of oil and eventually these green job will need to be bailed out with more tax money.
Most likely the task of clean burning coal is already in the hands of the best minds to tackle, the reason you don't hear about it is because President Obama is not about HYPE, he reports good news of HOPE only when it's conclusive. In my opinion clean burning coal is an oxymoron, burning fossil fuel of any kind is thoughtless, wrong headed and as recently observed, leads to unconscionable criminal activity.
Ms.Tavares article is very convincing for creating revenue for Nevada, and why not? the land is idle and unemployed, it should be put it to work, and with thoughtful planning, respectfully keeping it from becoming eyesores, NV could become a competitive force in an emerging positive future.
I think Mr. Heller and Reid get it, all that is required now is our cooperation. Please Vote!
If reducing the cost of energy is your concern, why not install your own home solar system and invest in companies to produce more affordable products? You can you know... without government interference, coz it's still the 'good ole USA' and it's better than EVER!!
C'mon Nevada it's time to shed the 'Old West Cowpoke mentality' and move into a fresh new world. Have a little faith in our President, he's actually doing the right things.