Salazar Implements Solar Development Policy
As expected, Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar signed the record of decision, officially implementing the Obama administration's Solar Energy Development Program. For the most part, the policy codifies the status quo -- handing energy corporations wide access to public wildlands. The initial intent of the policy proposal was to limit the destructive solar energy projects to specific zones, but after intense lobbying by the energy industry, the Obama administration included the option for companies to propose projects on nearly 30,000 square miles of "variance" lands outside of approximately 445 square miles of the solar energy zones. This wide access to wildlands is the cause of so much concern among conservationists, since energy companies have sought to build on critical desert habitat , instead of already-disturbed lands. Groups such as the Sierra Club and Defenders of Wildlife suggested development should be limited to the zones, which already provided more lan