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The Future of Solar on Public Lands
00:30:47
This week, Sammy goes for a hike in one of America’s newest national monuments, designated last month by President Biden. He’s joined by retired federal wildlife biologist Russell Scofield, who spent years working to balance renewable energy development and conservation on public lands. Link to the Boiling Point newsletter: https://www.latimes.com/environment/newsletter/2025-02-06/column-forget-trumps-wrecking-ball-heres-how-to-treat-americas-public-lands-boiling-point
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- [00:02]
Host
This is an LA Times Studios podcast.
- [00:10]
Sammy Roth
From the Los Angeles Times. I'm Sammy Roth. This is Boiling Point.
- [00:26]
Russell Schofield
I wasn't much of a hater.
- [00:31]
Sammy Roth
Last weekend. I went for a hike with Russell Schofield, a longtime ranger and wildlife biologist at the Federal Bureau of Land Management. He worked there for nearly three decades before retiring in 2020. He lives in the California desert outside Joshua Tree National Park. We met up near the Salton Sea.
- [00:53]
Host
I always thought these ladders were a little sketchy.
- [00:56]
Sammy Roth
Yeah, we were in the Mecca Hills, a series of slot canyons and gorgeous rock walls formed over millions of years by earthquakes along the San Andreas fault.
- [01:06]
Russell Schofield
It is the ladder canyon.
- [01:08]
Host
It is.
- [01:09]
Sammy Roth
We had to wiggle through narrow canyons and scramble up and down ladders to finish the hike. As of last month, this whole area, the Mecca Hills Wilderness, is part of Chuckwalla National Monument. It was designated by President Biden six days before he left office.
- [01:27]
Host
This monument will protect more than 624,000 acres of wildlife habitat and sacred ancestral lands.
- [01:37]
Sammy Roth
Scientists say that protecting 30% of Earth's lands and waters by 2030 is crucial for preserving the planet's biodiversity. Biden embraced that 30 by 30 target, but also had a competing goal, to confront climate change by promoting the construction of solar and wind farms on America's public lands. The difficult job of balancing renewable energy and conservation frequently fell to Schofield's employer, the Bureau of Land Management, also known as blm.
- [02:13]
Host
You know what they say, if everybody walks away from the table from a BLM plan and everybody's mad, then BLM got it right.
- [02:23]
Russell Schofield
The bureau has a tough job.
- [02:25]
Sammy Roth
It's legally obligated to balance many competing conservation, oil and gas, drilling, recreation, Native American cultural resources, and now renewable energy. When Russell was at the blm, he worked on something called the Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan, or drecp. It was basically a master plan for where to put solar and wind farms on public lands in the California desert, ideally without doing too much damage to wildlife habitat. It was not an easy plan to write. Americans love their public lands, and a lot of people had very strong opinions on which places should be off limits to renewable energy. But even though nobody was super happy with the DRECP when it was finalized in 2016, the plan is still in place today. Even President Trump couldn't manage to get.
- [03:21]
Russell Schofield
Rid of it in his first term.
- [03:22]
Host
The Trump effort on the dracp, everybody said it was amending the dracp. Well, folks, the DRACP was an amendment, and you don't amend an amendment I mean, sorry, I'm being bureaucratic here.
- [03:36]
Russell Schofield
That's okay.
- [03:37]
Sammy Roth
Trump's BLM approved a lot of solar and wind Farms between 2016 and 2020. But now, several years later, the world changed. This time, it's looking like oil and gas will reign supreme. Trump has paused all approvals for renewable energy projects on public lands. That's why I wanted to hike with Russell at Chuckwalla National Monument. The monument is a great example of how to thread the needle between renewable energy and conservation, at least in my opinion. Energy companies and conservation groups struck a compromise that ensured the monument boundaries wouldn't block solar projects or power lines in those DRECP development zones. Nobody was totally happy, but everybody got some of what they wanted. I wanted to know what Russell thought would happen with renewable energy and conservation over the next four years. I also wanted to learn from his work over the last 30 years. We stopped near the end of our hike to record this conversation. We were standing along the side of a big sandy canyon in a little shadowy spot. A few other hikers passed by us as we talked.
- [04:54]
Russell Schofield
It was a beautiful day in the desert. Russell Schofield, thank you very much for being with us on the Boiling Point podcast.
- [05:00]
Host
Thank you.
- [05:02]
Russell Schofield
So you worked at a Bureau of Land Management for a long time, huh? What did you like about doing that job? What was your. I mean, what drew you to that work?
- [05:09]
Host
The thing about BLM versus working for some of the other agencies is that BLM has such a varied mission and such a complex mission. So you're trying to protect cultural resources, trying to protect endangered species, while at the same time providing for development opportunities and recreational opportunities. So finding that balance is both complex and challenging, fun.
- [05:38]
Russell Schofield
And National Park Service, it's just protect for people to enjoy. Forest service, keep the trees from burning. But Bureau of Land Management, you're trying to do all these different things, right? There's energy development, there's recreation, there's mining. You've got to keep a lot of different things juggled in the air.
- [05:57]
Host
Absolutely. That's the thing about blm, is how do you find balances between the various uses, often competing uses for the public.
- [06:09]
Russell Schofield
Lands, just to ground people a little? I mean, I think everyone knows what national parks are because they've been to Yosemite or Joshua Tree or Yellowstone. For Californians, what are some of the lands that BLM is known for? What might people identify with?
- [06:24]
Host
Well, we're standing in Chuckwalla National Monument right now, so hopefully they are starting to learn about that here in California, the BLM Managees quite a number of national monuments, but it's more than the national monuments, of course. We've got, you know, so many of the rocks and islands off the coast or part of the Coastal California Coastal National Monument, but we've got other areas. For example, the Amargosa river just to the east of Death Valley, which is extremely unique, very rich biologically, and it's not a national monument, but it's a protected area and is very unique. Sees a lot of visitors. You know, BLM manages redwoods, BLM manages sequoia trees, BLM manages beaches, and BLM manages what people generally think we manage here out in the desert.
- [07:29]
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- [08:08]
Russell Schofield
So we've been hiking for the last couple hours here in the Mecca Hills, part of the new Chuckwalla National Monument, like you said, and it's gorgeous here. I mean, this is one of my favorite spots. Tell me a little bit about what it was like when you first started to see renewable energy developers trying to build in this part of the desert. I mean, not here in this monument, because these are incredible slot canyons and these sheer walls of rock. But I mean, how long Was this, like 15, 20 years ago, maybe something like that?
- [08:38]
Host
It was after George W. Bush signed the Energy act of. What was that, 15 something?
- [08:44]
Russell Schofield
Yeah, I think 2005, maybe.
- [08:45]
Sammy Roth
Energy policy.
- [08:46]
Host
2005, right. 15 years ago. So 20 years ago. I can't do that.
- [08:51]
Russell Schofield
Time flies.
- [08:52]
Host
Yeah, time flies when you're having fun. But, you know, places like this at that time, even though obviously it wasn't a national monument then, it was still wilderness. So areas like this, where we're standing right now at least, were not under threat. There were other areas within the national monument that could have been and were threatened by renewable energy development.
- [09:16]
Russell Schofield
So this monument goes all the way out to the border with Arizona, right?
- [09:19]
Host
Yeah, I think it goes all the way to. I was looking at the maps last night. I think it Goes all the way to Highway 95.
- [09:25]
Russell Schofield
Highway 95. So big tracts of desert sort of between here stretching out to the east and north and south up to. Yeah, up towards the 10 and then down south towards the Imperial Valley.
- [09:34]
Host
Right. And there's a little. There's a. I think two parts of it on the north side of 10 in between desert center and Joshua Tree. But I mean, Anyway, after. In 2005, around 2006 time frame, BLM started seeing a lot of applications for renewable energy, and some of it at just unbelievable scale. A lot of that we thought was strictly speculation, and a lot of that, because it was speculation, the applications were rejected. Also. A lot of applications, people would just go out and they would file an application and put public land without doing any due diligence. So you would. You would get applications filed on top of wilderness. You would get applications filed just in places that would never be permitted. That BLM wouldn't even entertain analyzing whether it should be permitted.
- [10:29]
Russell Schofield
So these weren't serious energy companies trying to do this. This was just people.
- [10:33]
Host
Some. Some were serious. Most, I don't think were. That was kind of the consensus at the time.
- [10:38]
Russell Schofield
But I take it eventually companies started coming in with real plans that were doing their homework and saying, hey, this is a sp. We could put a solar farm. Hear us out.
- [10:48]
Host
Yes, the renewable energy industry at the time was very young. It has since matured significantly. And yes, they understand how the process works now, and they understand what they need to do to be permitted on public land, and they understand how to work with blm.
- [11:11]
Russell Schofield
You have a background in natural resources and wildlife, right?
- [11:14]
Host
Correct.
- [11:14]
Russell Schofield
So what, what were some of the things you were thinking about as these developers started proposing these projects in terms of, you know, protecting public lands and protecting wildlife in the desert?
- [11:24]
Host
So, of course, you can't talk about wildlife in the desert without talking about desert tortoise whose population numbers are just circling the toilet. So you look at the tortoise, you look at other species that may be on the endangered species list. How, how would these projects potentially impact those species habitat either directly or indirectly? Would it result in actual habitat loss? Would it result in. Maybe not habitat loss, but habitat fragmentation? Would it result in bringing in disease or invasive species? Would it block migration corridors? And then, you know, that's not even considering what's it going to look like in climate change and how is that habitat going to shift?
- [12:19]
Russell Schofield
I mean, as we've been hiking here, I mean, I think we've been seeing the effects of climate change a little bit. You Were pointing out to me ocotillos that were already blooming on February 1st.
- [12:28]
Host
I mean, that seems a little bit early.
- [12:30]
Russell Schofield
Yeah, I mean, I'm happy. It's a beautiful day. I mean, not wearing a jacket, it's sunny out, it's warm. But I mean, you've seen this stuff over the years, haven't you?
- [12:39]
Host
Yes. It just seems like spring's coming and this is just a warm spell. Maybe it's not spring.
- [12:49]
Russell Schofield
I mean, you gotta do attribution studies and figure it out later. But on the whole, it's not that hard to see what's going on.
- [12:54]
Host
Anecdotally, I think you can look around and say spring's coming earlier, it's warmer, you know, up where I live. I live at about 4,000ft. When we first moved there in the 90s, early 90s, it rarely, rarely got into the 90s, mid-90s. Now we have days in the hundreds every year.
- [13:17]
Russell Schofield
So you've got these developers who are proposing these big solar farms and you've got to deal with the ecological consequences of that and being careful about tortoises and migration corridors and just ecosystems writ large. But clearly there's a. I mean, there's a tension here. There's a balance because these are projects that society in a lot of ways needs to deal with. Climate change as well.
- [13:38]
Host
Well, it's a balance. It's always a balance. You've got the need, the absolute need for us to find solutions to climate change, ways to replace fossil fuels, but at the same time, we have to be careful not to destroy one of the last major moderately intact ecosystems that we have in California.
- [14:04]
Russell Schofield
One of the. I mean, and I find this hard to write about sometimes. I mean, this is a topic that I've written all sorts of stories about, and it's so fraught. I mean, the opinions that I hear from people, the people I interview and readers reading these stories, I mean, there are people who care so badly, understandably, about the desert and about these ecosystems. And there are people who so badly just, you know, are focused on fossil fuels and building renewables. It's really tough. And I imagine it probably wasn't the easiest thing for you to work on in dealing with a lot of these different groups and stakeholders.
- [14:36]
Host
Well, anytime you talk about land management, it becomes an impassioned conversation because everywhere is somebody's favorite spot to do something, it seems like, or everywhere is important, biologically or culturally.
- [14:52]
Russell Schofield
Right. You've got tribes and you've got wildlife and you've got off roaders and you've got rockhounds and you've got rural communities that like their views. I mean, there's something everywhere and it makes sense.
- [15:01]
Host
Exactly, exactly. So there's, you know, there's no spot where you can say this spot. There's no conflict. That just isn't going to happen. So you look for areas where you have lower conflicts. Maybe, maybe it's really lousy habitat, but it's very rich culturally. Well, that's probably not a lower conflict area, but maybe you've got an area that's really lousy habitat and it doesn't really have that many cultural resources and maybe that's a little bit lower conflict, even though it still might be someone's favorite spot to go hiking or to ride their dirt bike on or whatever. And it's those lower conflict areas that you hope you can strike the balance with to permit development.
- [15:57]
Russell Schofield
And this is something that obviously you worked on during your time at Bureau of Land Management and I hate acronyms, so I'll try not to use this one too much. But the drecp, the Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan, or is it and Conservation plan?
- [16:09]
Host
Either, either.
- [16:11]
Russell Schofield
Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan. I'll spare the one word, and this is something that I wrote about back when I was at the Desert sun in Palm Springs. But the basic idea was that it was this big look at 10 million acres. Right. Of federal land, I think was the number. And the goal was to figure out where in the desert what land should be conserved and what lands should renewable energy be allowed to be built on. This was a big long process that took a long time and I think you were involved with it to an extent. I don't know. What do you think about how that all went down? What was your feeling about that?
- [16:47]
Host
Yeah, I was involved a little bit in the development and a lot in its implementation. But, you know, DRECP was a. It was a tough needle to thread because again, you've got these large scale renewable energy projects coming in that we absolutely need to find a way to accommodate their development. However, we want to find those lower conflict areas while at the same time providing adequate conservation that offsets the development. So that's what DRECP was all about, was not just identifying where the development needed to go and focusing the development in those development focal areas, but then also, how do we develop a conservation strategy that's going to allow us to do this? How are we going to develop a conservation strategy that lets us permit these renewable energy projects while at the same time not making the tortoise go extinct. Still upholding our responsibilities under the. Under the Endangered Species Act, Clean Water, Clean Air act, et cetera.
- [18:06]
Russell Schofield
Yeah. You have a lot of laws that you have to follow, which is good. It's good that we have those laws. Yeah, yeah. I mean, do you think it. I mean, and I want to ask you about the implementation, since that was your main job, but do you think it struck an okay balance on the whole?
- [18:19]
Host
I do, I do. You know, the joke is, I told you earlier, you know, if everyone leaves a public land planning process just a little bit irritated, then it probably went okay.
- [18:31]
Russell Schofield
That was my experience writing about it. I don't remember anyone telling me, this is perfect.
- [18:35]
Host
Yeah, well, it wasn't perfect. You know, there's public land, Multiple use manager. There's no such thing as the perfect plan because everybody has their own idea of what the perfect plan is. Right.
- [18:45]
Russell Schofield
I seem to recall nobody sued.
- [18:47]
Host
No one sued. We were all expecting to be sued, but no one sued.
- [18:53]
Russell Schofield
Right. And then Trump got elected and tried to undo the whole thing.
- [18:56]
Host
Well, we started trying to implement it, but then there was an election, and the new administration, the incoming administration, was not real happy with some of the conservation portions of the dracp, because ultimately.
- [19:16]
Russell Schofield
The balance you struck, as I recall, was there were millions of acres of conservation designations and what, a few hundred thousand or less than a million acres of development areas or possible development areas.
- [19:27]
Host
Right, right. There's 388,000 acres of development focal areas compared to. Yes. Millions of acres that were designated or in many cases, redesignated, and a whole variety of conservation acronyms.
- [19:44]
Russell Schofield
And so Trump's appointees probably thought, that's too much conservation.
- [19:47]
Host
Exactly, exactly.
- [19:50]
Russell Schofield
So you started to try to undo that at their direction, but didn't end up happening.
- [19:54]
Host
Well, we were instructed to look at some of the conservation designations and reduce, where we could. They didn't say, do a wholesale elimination. There was never anything like that. But look at the designations that might be unnecessary and eliminate some of those. What we did was we looked at areas where we had an administrative conservation designation, meaning a conservation designation that BLM just does on its own, versus something that the Congress or the President does. So we looked at some of those administrative conservation designations that were within designated wilt, which, of course, designated Wilderness is the highest level designation of conservation we have in this country. So those administrative designations could probably be removed within wilderness with very little or really no practical implications on the ground. It's already conservation by the wilderness designation. Similarly, we had overlapping conservation designations. Some of those were collapsed into a Single conservation designation. The result was what appeared to be the reduction of a lot of conservation, but in fact, very little reduction in conservation. Acres on the ground.
- [21:24]
Russell Schofield
Did it ever really come to pass, though?
- [21:27]
Host
No. BLM was going through the planning process. We published a draft eis and then I think we had another election and the new Biden administration put a stop to the amendment that we were working on.
- [21:46]
Russell Schofield
Now that Trump has taken office again. I mean, it's interesting because they wanted you to undo the conservation stuff, but they didn't, you know, they didn't stop you from going forward with the renewable energy development areas. But it seems that Trump has taken a much more aggressive, or at least his appointees a much more aggressive stance against renewable energy on public lands in the first couple of days, just in the first week. I mean, immediate pause on solar and wind energy permitting on public lands nationwide. I mean, there was a big wind farm in Idaho, Lava Ridge, that the Republicans in Idaho really don't seem to like. They're trying to actually revoke the approval for that. Have you been surprised or I guess, what's your reaction? Been just watching that play out where they seemed like they were okay with renewables last time and now they're trying to put a stop to it.
- [22:33]
Host
Yeah, I am a little surprised just based on what they did in Trump's first term. So I'm surprised based on that. At the same time, it seems like solar wind is probably not a part of his energy make up. You know, in the first administration we had the all of the, all of the above category. So I don't know if solar and wind are no longer a part of all of the above.
- [23:01]
Russell Schofield
I've forgotten that that was the phrase.
- [23:02]
Production Team
All of the above.
- [23:03]
Russell Schofield
That's really not it anymore, huh?
- [23:05]
Host
Yeah, apparently not. So I guess we have to wait and see.
- [23:09]
Russell Schofield
You were telling me earlier that you, you know, you wish we could do it all with rooftop solar. You know, that that's probably impractical, I guess. What do you see as the function of public land and getting us off of fossil fuels? What do you think is the role they can play?
- [23:23]
Host
Well, the DRECP, as I said, identifies 388,000 acres of development focus areas where renewable energy projects will be streamlined. So if we fully build out the DFAs, we could get something like 27,000 megawatts of renewable energy. The point being that, yes, there's an opportunity to make a lot of renewable energy in the desert within those development focus areas, those lower conflict areas that were designated as some people would refer to them as the sacrifice areas. At the same time, where does public land play into this transmission, moving energy from point A to point B? You know, public lands basically surround the entire LA basin. San Diego. You can't get to LA without driving across public lands somewhere. So if you're looking to move energy from Nevada, from Arizona to California or vice versa, I don't know if that occurs, then you're going to need to cross public lands. If you're looking at moving gas communication lines, all of that's going to cross public lands. You can't avoid it. So that's another role that the BLM and the public lands play in our new renewable energy future.
- [24:54]
Russell Schofield
Well, that's one of the interesting things about the monument we're standing in right now, Chuckwalla National Monument. I mean the way it was crafted, I don't know the exact specs of it, but there was kind of a, a sort of deal reached between the conservation organizations such as Juris Cal Wild and the tribes that were campaigning for the monument and renewable energy companies in Southern California, Edison, the utility, to sort of do some carve outs as I understand it, to make sure there would be room to do transmission lines to wheel renewable energy, you know, through areas that might have otherwise been designated as a monument to the, you know, to the coastal areas, which I thought was really interesting and maybe a model for future cooperation.
- [25:33]
Host
Yeah. And you've got the i10 transmission corridor, which is a designated utility corridor. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And as if you drive to Phoenix, you'll see the transmission towers is also, I believe there's a gas line there as well. There's at least one pinch point between designated wilderness and, and Joshua Tree national park where you can only put in so much transmission. So you know, it's important to avoid blocking those corridors that you know, a big something that has to be considered even in permitting renewable energy projects out in the East Riverside development focus area. The one around Desert Center.
- [26:29]
Russell Schofield
Yeah, out by Joshua Tree, south of the park.
- [26:31]
Host
Exactly. But, but that transmission corridor goes through the development focus area. So it's important that you don't block future transmission with future solar energy projects.
- [26:47]
Russell Schofield
So complicated.
- [26:48]
Host
It's a complicated.
- [26:50]
Russell Schofield
What do you think when you go to that area out by Desert center with all the solar farms out there? Just because. How do you feel when you drive past that?
- [26:57]
Host
Part of me feels optimistic for the future, that we are slowly moving towards a renewable energy future. Part of me though, the Desert Rat part of me is a little depressed at the same time because that Valley. Beautiful valley.
- [27:19]
Production Team
Yeah.
- [27:19]
Russell Schofield
I mean, there are people who moved out there to Desert center, to that town, because it's such a beautiful valley.
- [27:23]
Host
Exactly, exactly.
- [27:25]
Russell Schofield
Yeah. No, I asked that question just because you've lived out here for what, 30, 30 plus years?
- [27:30]
Host
Yeah, more than 30 years.
- [27:31]
Russell Schofield
Yeah. And I only lived out here a couple years. But I understand, you know, philosophically, it's like, it's really tough. You use the phrase sacrifice zones and, you know, I would love to think we could do it all with rooftop solar. And I've written plenty of times about the various studies and political realities, basically coming to the conclusion that you're not going to really get anywhere close. And here's why. We should go as far as we can with rooftop solar and then figure out, like you're saying, the low conflict areas and do it the best we can the other way. And it's. I enjoy this conversation because I like that we're talking realistically about how do you do the trade offs as best you can. But it's hard because I know that no matter what I write, there are a lot of folks who I'm just, I'm never going to convince to have that conversation because it's just, it's a hard thing to see and accept. It's really challenging.
- [28:19]
Host
It is, it is. You know, when you look at, you look at the needs of the country as a whole and the fact that the public lands belong to all of us, whether we live here in the desert or whether, you know, we live in Indianapolis, they're our public lands and how do we use them for the greater good? And oftentimes the greater good is conservation, recreation, the national monument we're standing in. But in some cases, the greater good is development of one form or another, whether that's transmission, so you can have electricity in Los Angeles, or whether it's renewable energy so we can hopefully wean ourselves off of fossil fuels. We have to accept that to a degree.
- [29:11]
Russell Schofield
Russell Schofield, thank you for being with us on the Boiling Point podcast.
- [29:15]
Host
Thanks for. Thanks for having me.
- [29:21]
Sammy Roth
As it happens, the Mecca Hills Wilderness is one of the places I learned to love hiking. A friend took me there in 2014, just a few months after I got a job covering energy at the Desert sun newspaper in Palm Springs. The slot canyons and beautiful desert scenery were just so inspiring. So when I learned the Mecca Hills would be part of Chuckwalla National Monument, I was thrilled. Now we'll have to wait and see if Biden's monument designation lasts or if Trump tries to undo it. If he does, we'll have to wait and see if the Supreme Court lets him. The question of whether presidents have the power to undo national monuments has never been legally settled. We'll also have to see if Republicans in Congress try to repeal parts of the 1906 Antiquities act, the law that gives presidents the authority to designate national monuments. Russell thinks they might.
- [30:23]
Production Team
Thank you for listening to Boiling Point. I'm your host, Sammy Roth. My producers are Mary Knoff and Jonathan Shiflett. Sound design and original music by Jonathan Shiflett. Elijah Wolfson is our editor. Denise Callahan is our studio manager. Ben Church is our production manager. Nick Norton is our engineer. Special thanks to LA Times Studio President Anna Magzanian, President and Chief Operating Officer of the Los Angeles Times, Chris Argentieri and executive Editor of the Los Angeles Times, Terry Tango. Boiling Point is executive produced by Darius Derek Sean and created by me, Sami Roth.