Bureau of Land Management November 21, 2014 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

On September 30, 2014, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) published in the Federal Register with a 60-day comment period a proposed rule, to facilitate responsible solar and wind energy development and to receive fair market value for such development. (79 FR 59021) The proposed rule would promote the use of preferred areas for solar and wind energy development and establish competitive processes, terms, and conditions (including rental and bonding requirements) for solar and wind energy development rights-of-way both inside and outside these preferred areas. The proposed rule would also make technical changes, corrections, and clarifications to existing rights-of-way regulations. Some of these changes would affect all rights-of-way and some provisions would affect particular types of actions, such as transmission lines with a capacity of 100 Kilovolts (kV) or more, or pipelines 10 inches or more in diameter. The BLM received requests to extend the comment period of this proposed rule. In response to these requests, the BLM is extending the comment period for 15 days beyond the end of the initial comment period. As a result of this extension, the comment period will now close on December 16, 2014.