Interior Secretary Limits Domestic Energy Production, but Fast Tracks Solar Development

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Since he took office, Secretary of Interior Salazar has aggressively limited domestic energy production from efficient sources of energy. He revoked oil and gas leases in Utah, delayed taking action to open up additional areas for offshore energy development, and halted a program to allow commercial oil shale leasing. All of these programs would have created American jobs without imposing additional costs on taxpayers.

Now, after months of limiting access to additional sources of domestic energy, Secretary Salazar has decided to fast track taxpayer-subsidized solar energy development on federal lands. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM), an agency within the Department of Interior, announced earlier this month its intent to use 676,048 acres in six states—California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado—as solar energy study areas. The process to prepare these areas will take 2 years. The first step—soliciting comments via a Federal Register Notice—has already been completed. Comments were due by July 30, 2009. Salazar claims that this action, which will permit the construction of 13 commercial-sized solar facilities on public lands, will create 50,000 jobs.[1]

Salazar failed to mention that because solar power is heavily subsidized by taxpayer dollars, the jobs this plan creates will lead to many jobs lost elsewhere in the economy. He also failed to note that electricity generated by these plants will cost consumers 2.5 to 4 times more than generation from efficient energy sources like coal and natural gas. And solar is subsidized almost 100 times more than petroleum and natural gas, as measured on an electricity production basis (that is, in terms of dollars of subsidy per megawatt-hour produced).