The Bureau of Land Management’s beleaguered wind and solar program is under fire from an Interior Department watchdog for its review of hundreds of project applications during President Donald Trump’s first term through most of the Biden administration.
Interior’s inspector general this week issued an audit of BLM’s solar and wind application processing between 2017 and 2023 that found the bureau did not properly evaluate project applications, finding more than one in four approved projects “contained deficiencies” that could have prevented them from advancing.
The IG audit also estimated that for the vast majority of the 258 applications processed during this period — 84 percent — there was no evidence BLM had verified the applicants possessed the “technical and financial capabilities” to develop the projects under review, according to the IG’s audit that’s dated Tuesday.
“These deficiencies resulted from insufficient management oversight, outdated and absent policies and procedures, and insufficient training of BLM staff responsible for processing [rights-of-way] applications,” according to the audit, which included 10 recommendations for implementing new “internal control policies and procedures” to improve oversight.
