In the dying days of the Trump administration, the Bureau of Land Management tried to stick one more knife in California’s back by unilaterally proposing sweeping changes to the 2016 Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan, a complicated and delicately-constructed compromise among an array of organizations with competing interests in developing or preserving 10.8 million acres of desert. President Biden needs to withdraw the proposal and preserve the equilibrium his predecessor sought to disrupt.
The plan was crafted to balance the need to provide space for renewable energy projects, such as solar and wind farms, against the need to preserve delicate environments that are home to an array of flora and fauna, including endangered species such as the desert tortoise. In the tradition of compromise, after eight years of negotiations, proposals and counterproposals, at least a dozen public hearings and more than 16,000 public comments, all the affected parties got some of what they
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This is the Jan. 21, 2021, edition of Boiling Point, a weekly newsletter about climate change and the environment in California and the American West. Sign up here to get it in your inbox.
The last story I wrote before Donald Trump was elected president, four years and two months ago, was about the Obama administration’s claim that it had approved 60 renewable energy projects on public lands, capable of powering up to 5 million homes. I scrutinized those numbers, finding they dramatically overestimated the outgoing president’s accomplishments.
When Trump defeated Hillary Clinton a few days after the story published, I started to wonder if I had wasted my time.