Help Safeguard Mojave Desert Tortoises from Large-Scale Solar Development

Mojave desert tortoises can live to be 80 years old but they need intact habitat to survive. Large-scale solar development threatens to fragment that habitat. That’s why it’s critical for the federal government to devise a comprehensive framework for how renewable energy is developed on our public lands.

The Bureau of Land Management is currently seeking public input on its plan for large-scale solar development in the West. It’s vital that the administration only allow development in areas that won’t harm wildlife populations, such as those of Mojave desert tortoise.

Please let the Biden Administration know that you want to see protections for wildlife in the framework it develops for large-scale solar development on public lands.

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Director

Tracy

Stone-Manning

Bureau of Land Management (Solar)

Dear Director Stone-Manning,

I applaud the agency’s plan to update the Western Solar Plan. A comprehensive, landscape-level approach is needed to balance resource management and conservation needs with the goal of building new renewable energy on public lands. We urge you to take the following steps as you build a framework to guide the buildout of renewable energy and related infrastructure in the West.

•	The BLM should expand the existing solar plans to comprehensively address impacts of development across the eleven western states, including Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Washington and Oregon (in addition to Utah, Nevada, New Mexico, California, Colorado, and Arizona).
•	The BLM should identify ways to incentivize solar energy development in priority areas where it would have the least impact on wildlife and other important resources 
•	The BLM should analyze the capacity and demands of existing and permitted transmission infrastructure and use this information to inform the identification of priority areas.
•	The BLM should prohibit solar energy development where it will have negative impacts on important wildlife habitat, cultural and Indigenous resources, and nearby communities.
•	The BLM should separately and expeditiously amend plans to address wind and geothermal energy development and transmission.

Thank you for all you are doing to steward our public lands and helping our nation responsibly transition to a clean energy economy.

Sincerely,
{user_data~First Name} {user_data~Last Name}

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