Laws in Order: Cataloguing and Assessing State Siting Policies

Presentation Description: Inadequate clean energy infrastructure siting and permitting policies are a key institutional barrier to renewable deployment. However, there is no comprehensive inventory of state siting policies and little analysis of their effect on project deployment, community acceptance, or environmental protection.

Clean Air Task Force (CATF), in partnership with the DOE Office Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the Regulatory Assistance Project, and American Clean Power is creating the first-ever inventory of siting policies in all 50 states plus Puerto Rico. The project partners are comprehensively cataloguing and describing each state’s utility-scale solar and onshore wind siting policies to identify their key features. The partnership plans to release a public-facing report in March 2024.

As a follow-on effort, CATF, in partnership with The Nature Conservancy and Natural Resources Defense Council, is engaging E3 to assess recent siting policy outcomes in eight states. The project will include a qualitative and quantitative analysis of the policies’ impacts on pace and scale of deployment. The findings will be presented in a report to be released Spring 2024.

CATF proposes a panel discussion, including a diverse panel of representatives from DOE, LBNL, RAP, ACP, E3, TNC, and/or NRDC.

Key points of discussion may include:
• What features are held in common, and what are key differences, across state siting policies?
• What are major trends in recent state siting policy reforms?
• How can we assess whether reforms have been successful? What does success look like?
• What are some recommendations that emerged from the analysis?
• What are intended applications for the inventory and assessment?