Lewis Roca Blog

The first commercial wind and solar power generation facilities in the United States were constructed in the early-1980s. Since then, hundreds of acres of solar farms and thousands of individual wind turbines have been installed around the country largely as a result of maturing technologies, declining power prices, state renewable energy portfolio requirements and goals, and growing public interest in clean energy.

Late last month, the Bureau of Land Management (“BLM”) issued Instruction Memorandum 2021-046 to reinstate both BLM Manual Section (MS-1794) and BLM Handbook (H-1794-1), which restore previously rescinded BLM policies on mitigating operator impacts on public lands managed by the BLM.

On October 7, 2021, the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) proposed certain changes to its regulations implementing the National Environmental Quality Act (NEPA).