U.S. BLM’s PEIS signed
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the USDA Forest Service (FS) prepared a joint Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) to analyze and expedite the leasing of BLM- and FS-administered lands.
The “Geothermal Resources Leasing Programmatic EIS” was initially provided as a draft to the public in June 2008 with public meetings following. The final PEIS was then published this fall.
The final “record of decision” was then signed on December 17, 2008.
Overall, the comprehensive list of stipulations, best management practices and procedures for the land use amendment process and subsequent permitting can be considered to be very positive. One can only commend the efforts of BLM and FS with this programmatical improvement of the leasing process for geothermal development on federal land. This will definitely speed up the process, which currently takes too long.
Source: BLM website