He also announced an expansion of a Department of the Interior effort to identify specific zones for large-scale solar energy development on federal land.

The Draft Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement for Solar Energy Development, under public review since last December, will get a supplement meant to address issues raised during that review.

These include “developing well defined criteria for identifying solar energy zones; incentives for encouraging developers to site their projects in the zones and a variance process for those who wish to develop facilities outside such zones; additional surveys of biological and cultural resources in the zones; and a more detailed analysis of transmission”.

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