DOE Should Take Steps Toward Facilitating Energy Development on Its Public Lands

The U.S. Department of Energy should place a higher priority on developing an accurate and actionable inventory of agency-owned or managed properties that can be leased or sold for energy development, says a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. The report recommends a sequence of activities DOE can follow to manage its lands and identify properties that have promising profiles for energy resource development.

While other government agencies, such as the Department of the Interior, have examined and marketed opportunities to promote renewable resource development on public lands, DOE appears to have done much less, the report says. But with DOE’s depth and breadth of skills and technical capabilities with energy resources, it too could leverage such opportunities and play a major role in forging private-public partnerships in land development serving the national interest. The agency has varying degrees of responsibility over 164 sites in 32 states. 

“The intersection of public benefit and private interest is strong on these lands, and their development can further the national objective of energy independence and greater national security,” said Paul DeCotis, chair of the committee that wrote the report, and senior director of energy and utilities at West Monroe Partners, New York City. “Development of such lands has the potential to turn idle properties into valuable income-generating assets. With the most cost-effective resources developed at the most appropriate sites, DOE lands can serve as a commercial and research hub for innovative energy technologies.”

Continue reading at National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine