WASHINGTON – The government issued only a handful of permits to develop wind and solar energy projects on public land last year compared with more than 1,300 oil and gas permits issued on federal land, a shockingly low number that needs to be fixed fast, members of a House committee said Wednesday
The culprit, according to many of the wind and solar industry officials was testifying at the Natural Resources Committee hearing, is a bureaucratic process that can be used by project opponents to stall plans until they become economically unfeasible.
“I’m shocked at the constant problem of permitting and uncertainty,” said Rep. Jeff Landry, R-La.
James Gordon, president of Cape Wind Associates, LLC, detailed the permitting process during his experience with what could become the nation’s first offshore wind generation project, which has been in development for the last 11 years.
With no legal requirement for the duration of a permit review period, “opponents can use regulatory stalling and delay tactics” to “financially cripple” projects that may meet the necessary standards, he said. “One small group can tie you up in knots for many years,” Gordon said, referring to a special interest group that he said “has sought to delay the [permit] review process at every turn.”
The Natural Resources Committee has been trying to identify roadblocks tog wind and solar energy projects. At its first hearing on May 13, committee asked the directors of the Bureau for Land Management and the Bureau for Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement to explain the alleged permitting delays. They said they were working to eliminate redundant steps.
The wind energy industry alone employs about 75,000 people are employed in the U.S., and the generating capacity has grown annually by 35 percent over the past five years, “second only to natural gas and more than nuclear and coal combined,” said American Wind Energy Association spokesman Roby Roberts in a prepared statement. But despite industry growth, the witnesses agreed that the major roadblocks of policy uncertainty and a lengthy permitting process remain.
While federal incentives such as production tax credits and investment tax credits have helped the wind and solar industries, current credits are set to expire in a few years. In addition, grant program in the 2009 stimulus law provided $7 billion to be awarded to 2,601 renewable energy projects so far, “leveraging approximately $22 billion in private sector investment,” According to Stanford University energy expert Dan Reicher. But if projects have not started construction by the end of this year, they will lose the money.