Energy Law

Renewable Energy News, June 22, 2010

By Shems Dunkiel Kassel & Saunders PLLC

Solar energy could finally directly contribute to government coffers in Nevada if legislation proposed by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Rep. Dean Heller becomes law. But some solar companies are wary it could keep them from developing new energy plants if the same approach winds up applied to all Bureau of Land Management property.

The Nevada lawmakers this month introduced the American Solar Energy Pilot Leasing Act of 2010 in their respective houses. The legislation would designate two valleys in Lincoln County as solar pilot project areas where land leases would be auctioned to the highest-bidding solar developers. The legislation calls for Nevada and Lincoln to each get a quarter of the revenue from lease and royalty income from development on the land.

June 22 (Bloomberg) -- The Australian government will keep a target of generating 20 percent of the nation?s energy from renewable sources by 2020 while amending planned legislation, Climate Change Minister Penny Wong said.

?The amendments will ensure the long-term, sustainable growth of both the small-scale and large-scale renewable energy sector and will support new jobs and investment,? Wong said in an e-mailed statement today after putting the amendments to the upper house Senate.

The California Legislature and Gov. Schwarzenegger are expected to redouble their efforts to enact renewable energy legislation this year that would require California utilities to acquire 33 percent of their electricity from renewable energy like the wind and sun by 2020, up from the state's current 20 percent requirement by the end of this year.

While the governor vetoed a package of renewable energy standard bills last year, citing concerns that they would unduly restrict out-of-state renewable energy from counting towards the requirement, there is renewed interest among both branches of government to find common ground on legislation sooner rather than later. The governor issued an executive order on the 33 percent renewables issue, but the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), state legislators, renewable energy companies and many other stakeholders assert that an executive order does not carry the force of law, which is what's needed to send a clear market signal that California is prepared to invest in renewable energy.

Nine in 10 Americans -- including a majority of Republicans, Democrats and independents alike -- think U.S. energy policy either needs fundamental changes or to be completely rebuilt, a new CBS/ New York Times poll shows.

Just 6 percent think only minor changes are needed to the nation's energy policy, according to the poll, conducted June 16 - June 20.

Many debates about global warming seem to boil down to appeals to authority, with one side or the other citing some famous scientist, or group of them, to buttress a particular argument. The tone is often, ?My expert is better than yours!?

Against this backdrop, some analysts have been trying for several years to get a firm handle on where climate researchers come down, as a group, on the central issues in the global-warming debate: Is the earth warming up, and if so, are humans largely responsible?

Full post as published by Renewable Energy Law Blog on June 22, 2010 (boomark / email).