Obama Rule Could Take Wind Out of Renewable Power on Public Land

It was supposed to be the largest wind farm in North America, with 1,000 turbines spinning above 320,000 acres of southern Wyoming. But after investing more than $50 million and nearly a decade seeking approval to build a wind farm on public lands, the Power Company of Wyoming’s landmark project is still tied up in required scrutiny of its environmental impact.  "We understood that this is a complex process," said the company’s vice president Rocanne Perruso. "We did understand that it was going to be several years. We did not anticipate nine."  The Wyoming project is hardly an outlier. Although the Obama administration has given initial approvals to 46 wind and solar projects on 216,356 acres of public lands since 2009, just 15 are in operation. Others have been abandoned, are still being built or are undergoing years of required environmental analysis.