The Bureau of Land Management today announced public input opportunities for six regional reviews that will analyze the existing energy corridors designated for oil, gas, and hydrogen pipelines and electricity transmission and distribution facilities on Western Federal lands under BLM or U.S. Forest Service management.
The BLM, Forest Service, and Department of Energy recently released a study of the effectiveness of these corridors (accessible at http://corridoreis.anl.gov/) that identified questions to be considered during subsequent regional reviews.
These reviews will analyze whether any additions, deletions, or changes are needed to the 6,000 miles of corridor that were designated by the BLM and Forest Service under Section 368 of the Energy Policy Act of 2005. The corridors were designated after the agencies completed a broad-scale Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement in 2008, titled “Designation of Energy Corridors on Federal land in the 11 contiguous Western states" (accessible at the Website listed above). The first of the regional reviews contemplated by the corridor study start this September. It will focus on corridors in southern California, southern Nevada, and western Arizona.
To facilitate participation, the three agencies have jointly developed abstracts for each energy corridor and will be seeking input from the public and stakeholders - including Federal, Tribal, state, and local governments - to ensure as complete and current a record of facts related to the corridors as possible, before the development of recommendations.
Webinar-based orientations to the Region 1 corridor abstracts will be offered on Sept. 7 and Sept. 29, 2016, at 9 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time at http://corridoreis.anl.gov/. Completion of the last review for the corridors is set for late 2019, depending on available funding.
Public meetings for Region 1 abstracts will be held on the following dates at the following sites:
* Sept. 20, 2016, in Phoenix, Arizona, at the BLM National Training Center (9828 N 31st Ave., Phoenix, AZ 85051) from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Arizona local time.
* Sept. 22, 2016, in Palm Springs, California, at the University of California Riverside - Palm Desert Center, Room B200 (75080 Frank Sinatra Drive, Palm Desert, CA 92211) from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. PDT.
* Sept. 27, 2016, in Las Vegas, Nevada, at the Hampton Inn Tropicana (4975 S. Dean Martin Dr., Las Vegas, NV 89118) from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. PDT.
The public and stakeholders will also have the opportunity to review and comment on the Region 1 corridor recommendations before they are finalized and those Webinar and meeting dates will be publicized at least two weeks prior to the meetings.
The table below shows the full regional review sequence. Information on opportunities for engagement in Regions 2 through 6 will be provided as those reviews are initiated:
Regional Review Sequence
Energy Corridor Region
Start Public Input
Issue the Recommendations
Region 1
(CA, NV, AZ)
September 2016
February 2017
Region 2
(AZ, NM, CO)
March 2017
September 2017
Region 3
(CO, UT, NV)
October 2017
March 2018
Region 4
(WY, MT)
April 2018
October 2018
Region 5
(CA, NV)
November 2018
April 2019
Region 6
(MT, ID, OR, WA)
May 2019
November 2019
Source: U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management
