A new study led by a U.S. Geological Survey biologist reaches a simple conclusion: Do not disturb the sage grouse. Steve Knick's work shows that 99 percent of active leks, or breeding sites, are in areas with no more than 3 percent of the land disturbed by humans for uses such as roads, power lines, pipelines and communication towers.

Sixteen of the 29 states with renewable portfolio standards are considering legislation that would reduce the need for wind and solar power, according to researchers backed by the U.S. Energy Department. North Carolina lawmakers may be among the first to move, followed by Colorado and Connecticut. ...Repealing the state's RPS policy "would help increase disposable income, attract more business investment and make energy more affordable for consumers."

The conflicts are bound to grow as renewable projects spread, some environmental advocates say. "Certainly, there's going to be a lot more wind farms than there have been historically," ABC spokesman Bob Johns said. "And the problem is that we have seen no reason to believe that areas of conflict are being avoided - in fact, quite the opposite. They're walking right into it, leading with their chin on some of these."

Earlier this month, attorneys filed in U.S. District Court of Nevada what we will call for the sake of brevity Bundorf v. Salazar. (Searchlight wind suit) The suit accuses former Interior Secretary Ken Salazar of acting in "a manner that is arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, and contrary to law" when he granted permission for construction of an 87-turbine wind farm east of Searchlight on 19,000 acres of Bureau of Land Management land.

"The lack of data is particularly troubling because it is just this sort of data from permit holders that permits the U.S. Fish and WIldlife Service to monitor the health of the eagle populations within the United States, the release notes. Despite lacking a permit, Bittner continued to capture and band 144 migratory birds in the region, including at least one female Golden Eagle.

The 30-page complaint says that the environmental impact statement (EIS) "presents a one-sided and incomplete portrait of the proposed project and its likely adverse environmental impacts." "The Project would pose significant adverse harm to a wide array of sensitive and protected species -- including desert tortoise, bighorn sheep, golden eagles, bald eagles, and resident and migratory birds and bats -- through direct, indirect, and cumulative impacts."

Plaintiffs charge that the project, to be built by Duke Energy, would (in the words of the suit) "pose significant adverse harm to a wide array of sensitive and protected species ... including desert tortoise, golden eagles, bald eagles, and residential and migratory birds and bats... through direct, indirect, and cumulative impacts" which weren't adequately addressed.

Environmentalists and three Nevada residents are suing the Interior Department over its approval of the Searchlight Wind Energy Project, arguing the wind farm would sit in an area of the Mojave Desert that would cause widespread damage to sensitive wildlife habitat.

An F-15E Strike Eagle drops through the sky on a low-level training mission and encounters - a wind turbine. With turbine blades reaching within 8 feet of F-15s on missions out of Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, the proposed Pantego Wind Energy project resulted in a serious risk.

The Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) this week released a new proposal to share the "oversupply costs" that pile up when there is not enough demand for all the electricity produced by hydroelectric dams and wind-power producers. During these oversupply periods, when wind-power producers may be asked to shut down, the plan would compensate them for lost revenue, according to Doug Johnson, a BPA spokesman.

Dave Bittner, Golden Eagle expert with Wildlife Research Institute, pled guilty to federal charges of unlawful taking of Golden Eagles --working without valid permit and failure to file reports. Bittner conducted studies for Iberdrola's Tule Wind project approved by BLM and San Diego County for public and private land in the McCain Valley National Cooperative Land & Wildlife Management & Recreation Area. Tule Wind decisions by the Bureau of Indian Affairs for turbines on Ewiiaapaayp tribal lands, with a reported 6-8 Golden Eagle nests, and on State Lands Commission lands in Golden Eagle habitat are still pending. Can those agencies rely on Bitner's Golden Eagle work for Tule Wind that was apparently unpermitted and unlawful? What other breaches of law or professional ethics might be involved?

Under the IRS notice for PTCs, Burton explains, the tax-equity investor will need to consider not only whether 5% of a project's costs have been incurred, but also whether continuous construction was undertaken starting Jan. 1, 2014. "Continuous construction introduces an additional subjective element that requires an incremental layer of analysis for tax-equity investors and their counsel to grapple with," he says.

The wind farm and its transmission lines "will dominate the Searchlight desert and mountains," and the turbines, "with spinning blades that reach as high as the top of Caesars Palace in Las Vegas," will ruin the area for visitors, residents and businesses, the complaint stated, as well as cause "significant harm" to an array of animals through "direct, indirect and cumulative impacts."

The Internal Revenue Service explained today what developers must do this year to be considered to have started construction of new renewable energy projects. The IRS adopted roughly the same definition for start of construction as under the Treasury cash grant program.

The Internal Revenue Service completed rules today that define how wind-farm developers can qualify for tax breaks. Under a law signed by President Barack Obama in January, wind projects must begin construction by Dec. 31 to qualify for the production tax credit. That's looser than the standard from previous years, which required energy production to qualify.

The modern environmental movement has rolled over to become an outlet for loggers, energy firms and car companies to plug into. It is now primarily a social media platform for consumerism, growth and energy production - an institutionalized philanderer of green illusions. If you need evidence, just go to any climate rally and you'll see a strip mall of stands for green products, green jobs and green energy. These will do nothing to solve the crisis we face, which is not an energy crisis but rather a crisis of consumption.

Congress is slowly but steadily drilling into energy policy tax issues, but anyone hoping to see detailed plans soon may be disappointed. "Like any good play, you have to set the scenes, and we'll see what happens in the final act," said Steve Nadel, executive director for the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy.

The PTC's fate could be decided within the broader negotiations in Congress over how to overhaul the tax code for the first time since 1986. Lawmakers on the House Ways and Means Committee and Senate Finance Committee have been meeting privately for months on the topic, and additional details are expected to be rolled out over the course of this year. But it remains an open question whether tax reform will become a reality.

Center for Biological Diversity partnered with Sierra Club and Defenders of Wildlife to sue the Board of Supervisors in March 2012, claiming the impact report did not incorporate enough protections for endangered birds like the golden eagle and California condor. They also said the report did not consider a reasonable range of project alternatives, include enough mitigation measures, or adequately explain why the county rejected curtailment - shutting down turbines at certain times - as a way to reduce bird fatalities.