“Citing Need for Assessments, U.S.

Freezes Solar Energy Projects” by Dan Frosch,

New York Times, June 27, 2008 pg. 13

Faced with a surge in the number of proposed solar power plants, the
federal government has placed a moratorium on new solar projects on
public land until it studies their environmental impact, which is expected to take
about two years.

The Bureau of Land Management says an extensive environmental study is needed

to determine how large solar plants might affect millions of acres it oversees in six
Western states -- Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah.

But the decision to freeze new solar proposals temporarily, reached late last
month, has caused widespread concern in the alternative-energy industry,
as fledgling solar companies must wait to see if they can realize their hopes
of harnessing power from swaths of sun-baked public land, just as the
demand for viable alternative energy is accelerating.

“Encouraging Solar Energy” Capitol Hill Hearing Testimony. Statement of Rhone Resch
President Solar Energy Industries Association. June 19, 2007. Online. Lexis. The electricity
infrastructure in the US is aging and energy consumers are increasingly subject to
outages that affect critical infrastructure and disrupt business. The blackout of August
2003 in the Northeast, triggered by a tree limb landing on power lines, cost consumers
and businesses tens of billions of dollars. Unfortunately, this event is not unique and will
occur with greater frequency if Congress does not take steps to diversify our energy
portfolio. The good news is that this event could easily have been avoided through greater
use of solar energy.

“Solar is the Solution.” Steve Heckeroth. Mother Earth News. Hendersonville: Dec 2007/Jan
2008

We know that relying on coal, oil and natural gas threatens our future with toxic pollution,
global climate change and social unrest caused by diminishing fuel supplies. Instead of
relying on unsustainable fossil fuels, we must transform our economy and learn to thrive on
the planet s abundant supply of renewable energy. I have been studying our energy options
for more than 30 years, and I am absolutely convinced that our best and easiest option is
solar energy, which is virtually inexhaustible. Most importantly, if we choose solar we don't
have to wait for a new technology to save us. We already have the technology and energy
resources we need to build a sustainable, solar-electric economy that can cure our addiction
to oil, stabilize the climate and maintain our standard of living, all at the same time. It is
well past time to start seriously harnessing solar energy.

“Solar Power Captures Imagination, Not Money” By ANDREW C. REVKIN and

MATTHEW L. WALD New York Times, July 16, 2007 pg. 1

In the current fiscal year, the Energy Department plans to spend $159
million on solar research and development. It will spend nearly double,
$303 million, on nuclear energy research and development, and nearly
triple, $427 million, on coal, as well as $167 million on other fossil fuel
research and development.
Jay Inslee (US Rep Washington) and Bracken Hendricks (senior fellow Center for American
Progress) “Apollo’s Fire: Igniting America’s Clean-Energy Economy 2008,” pg. 82. “Our
rooftops may become our Saudi Arabia of solar energy. Even using today’s panels, America
could produce its entire electrical load via our available rooftops. We do not need a
hundred-square-mile plot of desert with wall-to-wall solar panels. Our rooftops will do
nicely. It is more efficient, in any event, for our energy to be generated in a distributed
fashion, in a multitude of places, to avoid the costs and inefficiencies of lengthy
transmission systems; an average of 7 percent of the energy is lost in transmission