The Bureau of Land Management will seek to further reduce leasing rates for wind and solar energy projects on federal lands and formalize those rates in regulations. The Interior Department cut renewable lease rates 50% last year under departmental authority. The proposal, announced Thursday, would set rates 80% lower than the previous level, and would implement them through the formal notice-and-comment review regulatory process. Doing so would require a future administration to undertake that entire process again in order to raise renewable energy leasing rates. (Reuters, E&E $, Politico Pro $, The Hill)
