Not so long ago, American energy policy might have included carbon-busting endeavors like cap-and-trade. But now, politicians’ focus has turned to clean energy, which Congress isn’t exactly rushing to support. In last week’s State of the Union, President Obama pointed out that his administration was doing what it could without Congress. The Navy is committed to ramping up clean energy. And Obama had directed his administration to facilitate the development of clean energy on public lands—enough to power 3 million homes.That promise isn’t quite as ambitious as it sounds: In 2005, a Republican Congress passed a bill requiring 10,000 megawatts of clean energy to go on public lands by 2015. But the Obama administration has been hustling to meet that goal, which it moved up by three years, to the end of 2012. The Interior Department oversees public lands, and by 2009, it had approved zero megawatts of solar projects. Since then, the department has approved more than 5,500 megawatts of solar projects, plus a handful of wind and geothermal efforts. In 2012, Interior is prioritizing projects that would provide 7,000 megawatts of energy, including a gigantic wind installation in Wyoming that’s rated at 3,000 megawatts. If these projects move along on schedule, the Obama administration will meet its self-imposed deadline and the 3-million-home mark the president touted last week.Any use of public land, though, has to balance the preferences of many interested parties, which include conservationists, hikers, hunters, off-road vehicle enthusiasts, energy developers, and neighbors. Renewable energy is no exception. Republicans in Congress dinged the administration in 2011 for not making enough public lands available to renewable energy development. (They’ve also been working on lumping in increased oil and gas development on public lands with renewable energy development.) Environmental groups generally support renewable energy development but have been fighting to keep the most sensitive public land out of circulation and to come up with a system that balances development with conservation...
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