Janice M. Schneider: As we've seen in California and other states, renewable portfolio standards and greenhouse gas legislation are driving the need for expeditious renewable energy development on the federal level. Of course, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, also known as the Stimulus Bill, committed an unprecedented amount of federal resources toward development of renewable energy, but also placed tight deadlines on the development of eligible projects. As everyone knows, renewable energy development is also a key policy directive of the Obama Administration, in particular to help address concerns related to climate change and also to create new green jobs.

In its first year, the Administration has taken numerous steps to facilitate renewable development. These include Interior Department Secretarial Order No. 3285, which prioritizes renewable development and directs the U.S. Department of the Interior [DOI] agencies to identify renewable energy zones and transmission corridors, and to create renewable energy coordination offices to facilitate and streamline permitting. The Administration has taken action to withdraw certain public lands for solar development. They've developed programmatic analyses for renewable resources, and they are fast-tracking certain projects. They've created a renewable energy policy group. There's a new MOU [Memorandum of Understanding], a few months old, to expedite permitting of transmission facilities across federal lands, and the Administration has similarly fast tracked certain transmission projects. There's also an MOU resolving jurisdictional issues between FERC [the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission] and the Minerals Management Service for renewable energy development on the outer continental shelf and new Minerals Management Service regulations for leasing offshore areas for renewable development.