There has been a call for stopping the further leasing of the land in order to conserve the the entire Mojave Desert ecosystem.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein recently urged Interior Secretary Ken Salazar in a letter to direct the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to suspend any further consideration of leases to develop former railroad lands for renewable energy or for any other purpose.

Feinstein, according to AP, said such development would violate the spirit of what conservationists had intended when they donated much of the land to the public.

As dozens of CSP plants move closer to commercialisation, land access issues become more important. While many of the planned projects will be developed on privately owned land, some of the nation’s best solar resources are on public property.

From the industry’s perspective, developers say the BLM permitting process for federal lands has been moving slowly and also have cited the current process involving the BLM as a major bottleneck for the development of CSP sector in the US.

Related links: BLM