Four Democratic U.S. senators on Friday slammed last month’s directive by Interior Secretary Doug Burgum requiring his office to review decisions on every wind and solar power project on federal lands, saying it will lead to delays and discourage private investment as power demand rises.
The lawmakers said the directive creates a bottleneck that will block progress on wind and solar energy, which accounted for the vast majority of new U.S. power generation added to the grid last year.
“Rather than ensuring an efficient permitting process for all energy resources, it appears this directive actively disfavors renewable projects in favor of more expensive, and more polluting, technologies” such as fossil fuels, said the letter to Burgum from Senators Martin Heinrich, Ron Wyden and two others.
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