Notice2024-00730
Notice of Availability of the Draft Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement for Utility-Scale Solar Energy Development and Notice of Public Meetings
Primary source
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Published
January 19, 2024
Issuing agencies
Interior DepartmentLand Management Bureau
Abstract
In compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, as amended (NEPA), and the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976, as amended (FLPMA), the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has prepared a Draft Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for Utility-scale Solar Energy Development and associated Resource Management Plan (RMP) Amendments and by this notice is providing information announcing the opening of the comment period on the Draft Programmatic EIS.
Full Text
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<title>Federal Register, Volume 89 Issue 13 (Friday, January 19, 2024)</title>
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[Federal Register Volume 89, Number 13 (Friday, January 19, 2024)]
[Notices]
[Pages 3687-3689]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [<a href="http://www.gpo.gov">www.gpo.gov</a>]
[FR Doc No: 2024-00730]
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DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
Bureau of Land Management
[BLM_HQ_FRN_MO4500177363]
Notice of Availability of the Draft Programmatic Environmental
Impact Statement for Utility-Scale Solar Energy Development and Notice
of Public Meetings
AGENCY: Bureau of Land Management, Interior.
ACTION: Notice of availability.
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SUMMARY: In compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act of
1969, as amended (NEPA), and the Federal Land Policy and Management Act
of 1976, as amended (FLPMA), the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has
prepared a Draft Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for
Utility-scale Solar Energy Development and associated Resource
Management Plan (RMP) Amendments and by this notice is providing
information announcing the opening of the comment period on the Draft
Programmatic EIS.
DATES: This notice announces the opening of a 90-day comment period for
the Draft Programmatic EIS beginning with the date following the
Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) publication of its Notice of
Availability (NOA) in the Federal Register.
To afford the BLM the opportunity to consider comments in the
course of preparing the Proposed RMP Amendments/Final Programmatic EIS,
please ensure your comments are received prior to the close of the 90-
day
[[Page 3688]]
comment period or 15 days after the last public meeting, whichever is
later.
The BLM will hold two virtual and six in-person public meetings
during the comment period. Public meetings will commence on February 5,
2024, with the first being a virtual meeting. In-person public meetings
will be held in the following cities:
<bullet> Boise, Idaho;
<bullet> Cedar City, Utah;
<bullet> Las Vegas, Nevada;
<bullet> Yuma, Arizona;
<bullet> Grand Junction, Colorado; and
<bullet> Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Additional information for all public meetings is available at the
project website listed in the addresses section below.
ADDRESSES: The Draft Programmatic EIS is available for review on the
BLM ePlanning project website at <a href="https://eplanning.blm.gov/eplanning-ui/project/2022371/510">https://eplanning.blm.gov/eplanning-ui/project/2022371/510</a>.
Written comments related to the Draft Programmatic EIS may be
submitted by any of the following methods:
<bullet> Website: <a href="https://eplanning.blm.gov/eplanning-ui/project/2022371/510">https://eplanning.blm.gov/eplanning-ui/project/2022371/510</a>.
<bullet> Email: <a href="/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection#c1b2aeada0b381a3adacefa6aeb7"><span class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="c9baa6a5a8bb89aba5a4e7aea6bf">[email protected]</span></a>.
<bullet> Mail: BLM, Attn: Draft Solar EIS, 1849 C Street NW,
Washington, DC 20240.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Jeremy Bluma, Senior Advisor, National
Renewable Energy Coordination Office, BLM Headquarters, email:
<a href="/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection#066c646a736b6746646a6b28616970"><span class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="e288808e978f83a2808e8fcc858d94">[email protected]</span></a> or telephone: (208) 789-6014. Individuals in the United
States who are deaf, deafblind, hard of hearing, or have a speech
disability may dial 711 (TTY, TDD, or TeleBraille) to access
telecommunications relay services for contacting Mr. Bluma. Individuals
outside the United States should use the relay services offered within
their country to make international calls to the point of contact in
the United States.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: This document provides notice that the BLM
has prepared, in collaboration with Cooperating Agencies, a Draft
Programmatic EIS and is announcing the opening of the comment period.
The Final Programmatic EIS may support a series of RMP amendments
following its completion. The Draft Programmatic EIS identifies the
land use plans that may be amended.
The planning area is located within the 11 States of Arizona,
California (excluding the lands covered by the Desert Renewable Energy
Conservation Plan in seven southern California counties), Colorado,
Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and
Wyoming and encompasses approximately 162 million acres of BLM-
administered public land.
The BLM is undertaking this programmatic evaluation to assess the
potential environmental, cultural, and economic impacts of modifying
its current solar energy program across the 11 Western States.
Potential modifications, through land use plan amendments, are being
considered to improve management consistency regarding utility-scale
solar energy development, advance national renewable energy development
priorities and goals, and address changes in solar technologies that
have occurred since the BLM's last solar energy planning effort in
2012. Potential land use plan amendments would align with the
principles of multiple use and sustained yield, consistent with FLPMA.
Under FLPMA, the BLM strives to make land use decisions that meet the
Nation's many needs, are environmentally responsible, and take into
account the use and enjoyment of the public lands by present and future
generations. The BLM seeks to advance its solar energy program
consistent with balanced management for other important land uses such
as recreational use; agricultural use, such as grazing; other energy
and mineral development; resource protection, including National
Monuments and National Conservation Areas; wilderness areas and
wilderness study areas; other specially designated areas; wildlife and
big game; water resources; cultural, historical, and paleontological
resources; and restoration of lands and resources where appropriate.
Purpose and Need
The purpose of the proposed action is to facilitate improved siting
of utility-scale solar energy development by identifying areas of BLM-
administered lands where solar energy development proposals may
encounter fewer resource conflicts as ``solar application areas'' and
identifying areas of public lands with known high potential for
resource conflicts as ``exclusion areas.'' There is a need to improve
the solar development application process by providing development
opportunities in specified ``solar application areas'' while
maintaining sufficient flexibility to account for site-specific
resource considerations on a case-by-case basis as part of subsequent
project-specific decisions. Although additional site-specific
environmental analysis under NEPA will be needed to support project-
level decisions to authorize utility-scale solar energy development,
this macro-scale programmatic land use planning effort will provide a
framework for making those decisions in a systematic and consistent
way. Applications processed under this framework are expected to have a
higher likelihood of alignment with the BLM's multiple use and
sustained yield mission than under current land use plans, leading to
more expedient processing without jeopardizing critical resources or
other uses of public lands.
This programmatic planning effort also responds to changes that
have occurred since the BLM's last programmatic solar development
planning effort. First, utility-scale solar energy development on and
off public lands has significantly increased and is expected to
continue to increase in view of a growing public interest in carbon
pollution-free energy generation. Second, due to technological
advancements and economic forces affecting power markets, the
composition of proposed solar energy generation projects is now
different, with one example being a focus by solar developers in the
United States on using photovoltaic technology rather than solar
thermal facilities. Third, due to some of the technological
advancements mentioned above, the BLM is receiving increased interest
in utility-scale solar energy development on public lands at more
northern latitudes.
In response to these changes, the BLM needs to update its
administration of the public lands to facilitate responsible siting of
solar energy development. The BLM seeks to accomplish this by amending
its land use plans in the 11 Western States to identify areas more
suitable for solar development while appropriately excluding solar
energy development applications from areas where protection is
warranted based on critical need(s). Potential land use plan amendments
may also involve updating design features and environmental evaluation
processes and incorporating new information and additional
environmental analysis.
Alternatives Including the Preferred Alternative
The BLM has analyzed six alternatives in detail, including the no
action alternative. Each alternative makes available varying amounts of
public lands for solar development applications. In descending order
from the most available public lands for solar development application,
Alternative 1 would make available approximately 55 million acres; the
No Action Alternative would maintain the availability of approximately
47 million acres; Alternative 2 would make available approximately 36
million acres; Alternative 3 would make available
[[Page 3689]]
approximately 22 million acres; Alternative 4 would make available
approximately 11 million acres; and Alternative 5 would make available
approximately 8 million acres. The BLM considered six additional
alternatives but did not carry those alternatives forward for detailed
analysis for the reasons discussed in the Draft Programmatic EIS.
A reasonably foreseeable development scenario (RFDS) was developed
as part of the Draft Programmatic EIS to help define the potential
magnitude of solar energy development that could occur within the 11-
State study area by 2045. Based on the RFDS, the estimated demand for
solar energy generation on public lands by 2045 will be approximately
93,000 megawatts, which would require making approximately 700,000
acres of public land available for utility-scale solar development.
The BLM has identified Alternative 3 as the preferred alternative
in the Draft Programmatic EIS. Alternative 3 would make public lands
within 10 miles of existing and planned transmission lines over 100
kilovolts available for solar applications unless otherwise excluded
based on the resource-based exclusion criteria identified in the EIS.
Alternative 3 would improve the solar development application process
by excluding solar energy development applications from areas where
protection is warranted and providing development siting opportunities
in specified ``solar application areas'' while maintaining sufficient
siting flexibility to account for site-specific resource considerations
on a case-by-case basis under subsequent project-specific decisions.
Mitigation
Mitigation under the Programmatic EIS would generally take the form
of avoidance and minimization. Avoidance would be achieved by excluding
certain areas of public lands from solar energy development
applications, depending on the alternative, based on defined criteria.
Minimization would be achieved by requiring that various programmatic
design features be incorporated into solar development proposals.
Additional mitigation, including further avoidance, minimization, and
compensation, may be required and incorporated into a solar development
proposal at the project approval stage.
Schedule for the Decision-Making Process
The BLM will provide this and additional opportunities for public
participation consistent with NEPA and land use planning processes,
including a 30-day public protest period and a 60-day Governor's
consistency review on the Final Programmatic EIS and Proposed RMP
Amendments. The Proposed RMP Amendments/Final Programmatic EIS is
anticipated to be available for public protest in August 2024.
The BLM will continue to consult with Indian Tribal Nations on a
government-to-government basis in accordance with Executive Order
13175, BLM MS 1780, and other Departmental policies. Tribal concerns,
including impacts on Indian trust assets and potential impacts to
cultural resources, will be given due consideration. Consultation will
continue on an individual basis with interested Tribes.
Comments on the Draft Programmatic EIS would be most helpful if
provided at a level similar to that of master planning and zoning and
with a focus on where solar development on public lands is most
appropriate and where it should be disallowed and precluded from
consideration. Comments about suggested design features that may be
appropriate for the BLM to require are also encouraged.
Before including your address, phone number, email address, or
other personal identifying information in your comment, you should be
aware that your entire comment--including your personal identifying
information--may be made publicly available at any time. While you can
ask us in your comment to withhold your personal identifying
information from public review, we cannot guarantee that we will be
able to do so.
(Authority: 40 CFR 1506.6, 40 CFR 1506.10, 43 CFR 1610.2)
Benjamin E. Gruber,
Acting Assistant Director, Energy, Minerals, and Realty Management.
[FR Doc. 2024-00730 Filed 1-18-24; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4331-29-P
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