President Joe Biden has pledged to reduce carbon emissions to “net zero” in the U.S. electricity sector by 2035. This fantastical plan is, we are told, advancing along two tracks simultaneously. On one side is a systematic reduction of fossil fuel usage; on the other, a push to deploy renewable energy substitutes. Of course, the plan is predicated on the second track advancing at least as fast as the first. But it isn’t—and Biden’s own policies are partly to blame.
Case in point: The administration’s new “solar energy plan” for western states, where the vast majority of land is owned by the federal government. The Bureau of Land Management, or BLM, is proposing a new plan for “Utility-Scale Solar Energy Development” that is supposed to expand the development of solar projects across 11 western states. In fact, far from expediting the permitting of solar…
