FN: Frederick Noronha’s blog

2 July Update: Bowing to the protests of some very unhappy citizens , BLM announces a reversal of its decision to ban solar development on Fed lands.

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You must be thinking, it’s mid 2008, energy costs are going through the roof, so the headline of this post can’t be right … right?  Well I’m no anti-government anarchist, but the recent ruling by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to put all solar developments on Fed lands on hold for two years for environmental assessments is sheer madness. Combined with the impending expiration of Federal Solar tax credits, you’ve got a double renewable energy smackdown of monumental proportions, orchestrated by the government elected by you and me.

While Europe, Japan, China, India and even Dubai all plow ahead on new renewable energy projects of all shapes and sizes, with their governments often leading the charge, the US can’t even agree on a simple energy policy. And absent a policy framework that acknowledges the need for new sources of energy of all kinds, individual departments like the Department of Interior’s BLM can monkeywrench our energy future with impunity. Why they would choose to do this now has given me my first true case of blogger rage.

Image courtesy of Frederick Noronha, Creative Commons (x’s mine)