Wyden floats plan to boost geothermal energy

By Ben Geman - 02/15/13 01:45 PM ET

Pieces of new Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Ron Wyden’s (D-Ore.) legislative agenda are beginning to take shape.

On Thursday, Wyden introduced a measure aimed at boosting development of geothermal energy by tweaking the leasing program for tracts of federal land to develop the renewable resource.

Currently the Interior Department holds lease sales, and then offers land on a “noncompetitive” basis if no bids are received, Wyden said. The bill, Wyden said, would expand access to land that’s offered outside of competitive lease sales.

“This legislation extends the authority for noncompetitive leasing in cases where a geothermal developer wants to gain access to Federal land immediately adjacent to land on which that developer has proven that there is a geothermal resource that will be developed. This will allow a geothermal project to expand onto adjacent land, if necessary, to increase the amount of geothermal energy it can develop. It will also add to the royalties and rents that the project pays to the U.S. Treasury,” he said in a statement Thursday.

The measure is co-sponsored by Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), the Energy Committee’s top Republican, a long with a bipartisan mix of other lawmakers.

Here’s more from Wyden:

The reason for this legislation is to allow the rapid expansion of already identified geothermal resources without the additional delays of competitive leasing and without opening up those adjacent properties to speculative bidders who have no interest in actually developing the resource, only in extracting as much money as they can from the existing geothermal developer.

The bill is not a give away at taxpayer expense. The bill limits the amount of adjacent Federal land that can be leased to 640 acres. This lease on Federal land must be acquired at fair-market value. The bill also requires the lease holder to pay the higher annual rental rate associated with competitive leases even though this new parcel is not being competitively leased. Again, the purpose of this higher rental rate is to ensure that taxpayers will get the revenue due to them from the use of their public lands.