This Week in Clean Economy: Pressure Is on Obama to Finalize National Solar Plan

Pressure has begun to build for President Obama to make good on his State of the Union pledge to greenlight vast solar installations on public lands by year's end, with supporters seemingly growing antsy that it's either that or nothing in 2012.

On Monday, about 20 solar industry advocates, electric utilities and major environmental groups, led by the Natural Resources Defense Council, urged Obama to formally put into effect rules for the country's first solar program on government-owned lands by this fall.

The national solar plan, unveiled by the Obama administration more than a year ago, would open 20 million acres of federal lands in six Western states to large-scale solar plants. The most essential part of the plan is to remove permitting roadblocks that have strangled renewable energy growth on public lands blessed with abundant sunshine and other green resources. Another part is to build transmission corridors to carry the sun-powered electricity to surrounding communities. 

Concerns have grown that the program could linger in bureaucratic purgatory, while government officials, conservationists, solar firms and power companies hash out complex rules for speeding up the process for getting giant solar plants built without harming environmentally fragile areas. The Department of Interior has garnered more than 100,000 comments from stakeholders eager to shape the program.

Obama's State of the Union last week gave advocates an opportunity to trumpet the Interior Department's solar plan and urge quick action.

In his speech, the president said he was "directing" his administration to approve 10,000 megawatts of clean-electricity generation on public lands by the end of 2012, enough to power three million homes. (In total, solar power now provides about 30,000 megawatts, or roughly one-tenth of one percent of the nation's electricity.)

If the Obama administration is to reach that goal, "it must move quickly to put in place a smart solar energy program that speeds up permitting of projects," said Jim Lyons, senior director for renewable energy for Defenders of Wildlife, a Washington-based conservation group, in a collective statement of the solar plan supporters.

The Obama administration's federal-land program is seen as a test of its commitment to redouble its efforts to create the clean economy. That's mainly because it's one of Obama's only green energy promises that can be delivered without Congress. The administration's other State of the Union priorities—passing a federal clean energy standard and billions of dollars inrenewable energy tax breaks—need Congressional approval, an unlikely prospect in the current Congress.

Since Obama took office, the Interior Department has approved the nation's first 27 renewable energy projects on public lands. More than half of those are utility-scale solar farms, the bulk of which are in or around California's Mojave Desert. The permit process was slow, overly cumbersome and frustrating for developers, delaying solar expansion, the industry and its supporters say.

On Jan. 27, the roughly 20 groups sent a nine-page joint letter to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar with recommendations on a draft version of the new program, whose 90-day public comment period closed this week. A final draft is expected from the Interior Department in July.

Election-Year Jobs Debate Spills into China-U.S. Solar Spat

The job creation debate that has dominated other high-profile energy issues this election season, especially the Keystone XL oil sands pipeline, spilled into the solar sector this week.