By Timothy Gardner
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - 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.
They urged Burgum to rescind the directive and restore a transparent and timely permitting framework for renewable energy.
The Interior Department did not comment on the letter. But a spokesperson said the "enhanced oversight will ensure all evaluations are thorough and deliberative."
President Donald Trump has called wind and solar unreliable and expensive, and has pushed policies to boost U.S. production of oil, gas and coal.
Heinrich, ranking Democrat on the Senate energy committee, represents New Mexico, which has bountiful oil, gas, wind and solar resources.
Interior has said the reviews would apply to rights-of-way, leases, construction and other permitting activities.
Trump has ordered several measures aimed at restricting wind and solar. His spending law accelerated by several years the phase-out of tax credits for the renewable power sources.
Solar and wind companies have said Interior's directive was at odds with Trump's broader goal to slash burdensome regulations and boost energy for new data centers and artificial intelligence, which are hiking U.S. power demand for the first time in two decades.
Former President Joe Biden's Interior Department had been reviewing more than 65 utility-scale onshore clean energy projects, with nearly 200 more in the queue, the senators said.
(Reporting by Timothy Gardner; Editing by David Gregorio)
