Solar Energy Snub: Feds Shortchange Arizona in Solar Study

The feds are going to study 670,000 acres of Bureau of Land Management land in six western states -- but only 16,000 of those acres are in Arizona. What an oversight! Those gloomy skies over Washington D.C. must have dimmed bureaucrats' minds. It's typically said that we get...

By Ray Stern

August 18, 2009

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The feds are going to study 670,000 acres of Bureau of Land Management land in six western states -- but only 16,000 of those acres are in Arizona.

What an oversight! Those gloomy skies over Washington D.C. must have dimmed bureaucrats' minds. It's typically said that we get about 300 days of sunshine a year.

Kris Mayes of the Arizona Corporation Commission penned a letter on August 3 to the task force in charge of the solar study, asking it to reconsider its decision to shortchange the state.

The director for the BLM in Arizona tells the New York Times that there are already plenty of other "big solar initiatives" underway in the state. Still, it seems weird the feds are going to study eight or nine times the amount of acres for solar power in Nevada and New Mexico.

Maybe this is actually a good thing, though.

Let the other guys cover their states in solar panels.

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Ray Stern is the former news editor of Phoenix New Times. He worked as a newspaper reporter in Arizona for more than two decades. He's won numerous awards for his reporting, including the Arizona Press Club's Don Bolles Award for Investigative Journalism.