The Department of the Interior holds responsibility for public lands, natural resources, wildlife regulations, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs and has taken actions restricting renewable energy. The DOI announced elevated reviews for all wind and solar projects and ordered an end to preferential treatment for what it called unreliable, foreign-controlled energy sources. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management rescinded designated offshore Wind Energy Areas. A secretarial order introduced a capacity-density metric for projects on federal land. The agency canceled the Lava Ridge Wind Project in Idaho and sought eagle-death data from wind developers under the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act.
The Department of the Interior, or DOI, has such a wide-ranging set of duties that it's sometimes referred to in Washington, D.C., as "the department of everything else" - public lands, natural resources, wildlife regulations, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs all fall under its auspices. It is now also the tip of the spear in the Trump administration's war on renewables. On July 17, the DOI announced that all wind and solar projects would have to undergo "elevated review" from department Secretary Doug Burgum's office.
On July 29, Burgum ordered an end to "preferential treatment" for "unreliable, foreign controlled energy sources," specifically wind and solar. The next day, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, which sits within the DOI, rescinded all designated Wind Energy Areas along the continental shelf.
Two days later, on August 1, the DOI released a secretarial order that mandates all energy projects based on federal land be evaluated on their "capacity density," or how much energy they are able to produce per square acre. The following week, the agency ordered the cancellation of the already-approved Lava Ridge Wind Project, a proposed wind farm in Idaho, arguing that it would "harm rural communities, livelihoods and the land." And on August 4, Bergum called for the use of the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act to request numbers of eagle deaths from wind developers.
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