(a) The BLM may conduct a competitive process for solar and wind energy development grants or leases on its own initiative; or

(b) The BLM may solicit nominations for public lands to be included in a competitive process by publishing a call for nominations under § 2809.11(a); or

(c) You may request that the BLM conduct a competitive process by submitting a request in writing that complies with § 2809.11(b); or

(d) The BLM may conduct a competitive process if it receives two or more competing applications.

(e) Except where an applicant has failed to timely provide information requested by the BLM under § 2804.25(c), the BLM will not offer lands in a competitive process for which the BLM has accepted a complete application, received a Plan of Development, and entered into a cost recovery agreement.

(a) Call for nominations. The BLM may publish a call for nominations for lands to be included in a competitive process. The BLM will publish this notice in the Federal Register and may also use other notification methods, such as a newspaper of general circulation in the area affected, or the internet. The Federal Register notice and any other notices will include:

(1) The date, time, and location by which nominations must be submitted;

(2) The date by which nominators will be notified of the BLM's decision on timely submissions;

(3) The area or areas within which nominations are being requested; and

(4) The qualification for a nominator, which must include, at a minimum, the requirements for an applicant, see § 2803.10.

(b) Nomination submission. Nominations for lands to be included in a competitive process must be in writing, and include the following:

(1) A refundable nomination fee of $5 per acre;

(2) The nominator's name and personal or business address. The name of only one citizen, association, partnership, corporation, or municipality may appear as the nominator. All communications relating to submissions will be sent to that name and address, which constitutes the nominator's name and address of record; and

(3) The legal land description and a map of the nominated lands. The lands nominated may be the entire area or part of the area made available under the call for nominations.

(c) The BLM will not accept your submission if it does not comply with the requirements of this section, or if you are not qualified to hold a grant or lease under § 2803.10.

(d) Withdrawing a nomination. A nomination cannot be withdrawn, except by the BLM for cause, in which case the nomination fee will be refunded.

(e) The BLM may decide whether to conduct an offer for nominated lands.

(a) The BLM will identify parcels for a competitive process based on information received in public nominations, land use designations, and on any other information it deems relevant.

(b) The BLM and other Federal agencies, as applicable, may conduct necessary studies and site evaluation work, including applicable environmental reviews and public meetings, before offering lands in a competitive process.

(c) The BLM's choice to conduct a competitive process is not a decision to grant or deny a right-of-way application and is not subject to appeal under 43 CFR part 4.

(a) Variety of competitive procedures available. The BLM may use any type of competitive process or procedure to conduct its competitive offer, and any method, including the use of the Internet, to conduct the actual auction or competitive bid procedure. Possible bid procedures could include, but are not limited to: Sealed bidding, oral auctions, modified competitive bidding, electronic bidding, and any combination thereof.

(b) Notice of competitive offer. We will publish a notice in the Federal Register at least 30 days prior to the competitive offer and may use other notification methods, such as a newspaper of general circulation in the area affected by the potential right-of-way or the Internet. The Federal Register and other notices will include:

(1) The date, time, and location, if any, of the competitive offer;

(2) The legal land description of the parcel to be offered;

(3) The bidding methodology and procedures to be used in conducting the competitive offer, which may include any of the competitive procedures identified in paragraph (a) of this section;

(4) The minimum bid required (see § 2809.14(a)), including an explanation of how we determined this amount;

(5) The qualification requirements for potential bidders (see § 2803.10);

(6) If a variable offset (see § 2809.16) is offered:

(i) The percent of each offset factor;

(ii) How bidders may pre-qualify for each offset factor; and

(iii) The documentation required to pre-qualify for each offset factor; and

(7) The terms and conditions of the process, including whether a successful bidder will become a preferred applicant or a presumptive leaseholder; the requirements for the successful bidder to submit an application, see § 2804.12, or a Plan of Development, see § 2809.18; and any mitigation requirements, including compensatory mitigation.

(c) We will notify you in writing of our decision to conduct a competitive process at least 30 days prior to the competitive process if you nominated lands that are included in the process, paid the nomination fees, and demonstrated your qualifications to hold a grant or lease as required by § 2809.11.

(a) Bid submissions. The BLM will accept your bid only if:

(1) It includes the minimum bid and at least 20 percent of the bonus bid; and

(2) The BLM determines that you are qualified to hold a grant or lease under § 2803.10. You must include documentation of your qualifications with your bid, unless we have previously approved your qualifications under § 2809.10(d) or § 2809.11(d).

(b) Minimum bid. The minimum bid is not prorated among all bidders, but must be paid entirely by the successful bidder. The minimum bid consists of:

(1) The administrative costs incurred by the BLM and other Federal agencies in preparing for and conducting the competitive offer, including required environmental reviews; and

(2) An amount determined by the authorized officer and disclosed in the notice of competitive offer. This amount will be based on known or potential values of the parcel. In setting this amount, the BLM will consider factors that include, but are not limited to, the acreage rent and megawatt capacity fee.

(c) Bonus bid. The bonus bid consists of any dollar amount that a bidder wishes to bid in addition to the minimum bid.

(d) If you are not the successful bidder, as defined in § 2809.15(a), the BLM will refund your bid.

(a) The bidder with the highest total bid, prior to any variable offset, is the successful bidder, and may become the preferred applicant or the presumptive leaseholder in accordance with § 2809.15(b).

(b) The successful bidder will become the presumptive leaseholder or preferred applicant only after making the payments required in paragraph (d) and satisfying the requirements of this section and § 2803.10. If the successful bidder does not satisfy these requirements, the BLM may make the next highest bidder the successful bidder under § 2809.17(b) or re-offer the lands under § 2809.17(d).

(1) Presumptive leaseholder. (i) The successful bidder will become a presumptive leaseholder if:

(A) The lands for which the bidder has successfully bid are located within a designated leasing area; and,

(B) The notice of the competitive process indicated that a successful bidder will become a presumptive leaseholder.

(ii) A presumptive leaseholder will be awarded a lease only if the presumptive leaseholder submits a proposed Plan of Development in accordance with § 2804.25(c) and the proposed Plan of Development is approved by the BLM.

(2) Preferred applicant. A successful bidder who does not become a presumptive leaseholder in accordance with § 2809.15(b)(1) may become a preferred applicant. The preferred applicant's application for a grant or lease will be processed for the parcel identified in the submission under § 2809.12(b). Approval of the application is not guaranteed and is solely at the BLM's discretion. The BLM will not process other applications for solar and wind energy development on lands where a preferred applicant has been identified, unless allowed by the preferred applicant.

(c) The BLM will determine the variable offsets for the successful bidder in accordance with § 2809.16 before issuing final payment terms.

(d) Payment terms. If you are the successful bidder, you must:

(1) Make payments by personal check, cashier's check, certified check, bank draft, or money order, or by other means deemed acceptable by the BLM, payable to the Department of the Interior—Bureau of Land Management;

(2) By the close of official business hours on the day on which the BLM conducts the competitive process or such other time as the BLM may have specified in the offer notices, submit for each parcel:

(3) Within 15 calendar days after the day on which the BLM conducts the competitive process, submit the balance of the bonus bid (after the variable offsets are applied under paragraph (c) of this section) to the BLM office conducting the process; and

(4) Within 15 calendar days after the day on which the BLM conducts the competitive process, submit the application filing fee under § 2804.12(c) less the application fee submitted under § 2809.11(c)(1) (if you are the preferred applicant), or submit the acreage rent for the first full year of the lease as provided in part 2806 (if you are the presumptive leaseholder).

(5) You may be required to pay reasonable costs in addition to payment of the application filing fee when processing your application, pursuant to § 2804.14. A processing or monitoring Category 6 cost recovery fee may be reduced by the application filing fee paid when submitting an application.

(e) The successful bidder will not become the preferred applicant or be offered a lease and the BLM will keep all money that has been submitted with the competitive process if the successful bidder does not satisfy the requirements of paragraph (d) of this section. In this case, the BLM may make the next highest bidder the successful bidder under § 2809.17(b) or re-offer the lands.

(a) The successful bidder may be eligible for an offset of up to 20 percent of the bonus bid based on the factors identified in the notice of competitive offer.

(b) The BLM may apply a variable offset to the bonus bid of the successful bidder. The notice of competitive offer will identify each factor of the variable offset, the specific percentage for each factor that would be applied to the bonus bid, and the documentation required to be provided to the BLM prior to the day of the offer to qualify for the offset. The total variable offset cannot be greater than 20 percent of the bonus bid.

(c) The variable offset may be based on the following factors, including progressive steps towards:

(1) Power purchase agreement;

(2) Large generator interconnect agreement;

(3) Preferred solar or wind energy technologies;

(4) Prior site testing and monitoring inside the designated leasing area;

(5) Pending applications inside the designated leasing area;

(6) Submission of nomination fees;

(7) Submission of biological opinions, strategies, or plans;

(8) Environmental benefits;

(9) Holding a solar or wind energy grant or lease on adjacent or mixed land ownership;

(10) Public benefits;

(11) Use of items qualifying for the Domestic Content preference;

(12) Use of a project labor agreement; and

(13) Other factors.

(d) The BLM will determine your variable offset prior to the competitive offer.

(e) If the successful bidder's eligibility for a variable offset cannot be verified until a later time, the BLM may require the successful bidder to submit the full bid amount, without taking into account the variable offset, and hold the amount of the variable offset in suspense. The amount of the bonus bid corresponding to the variable offset will be refunded or credited to the successful bidder once the successful bidder has demonstrated that it has qualified for the variable offset. The BLM may set a deadline in the notice of competitive process by which the successful bidder must demonstrate its qualifications.

(a) The BLM may reject bids regardless of the amount offered. If the BLM rejects your bid under this provision, you will be notified in writing and such notice will include the reason(s) for the rejection and what refunds to which you are entitled. If the BLM rejects a bid, the bidder may appeal that decision under § 2801.10.

(b) We may make the next highest bidder the successful bidder if the first successful bidder does not satisfy the requirements of § 2809.15, does not execute the lease, or is for any reason disqualified from holding the lease.

(c) If we are unable to determine the successful bidder, such as in the case of a tie, we may re-offer the lands competitively (under § 2809.13) to the tied bidders or to all prospective bidders.

The lease will be issued subject to the following terms and conditions:

(a) Site control. A lease provides site control to the leaseholder. The term of your lease will be consistent with § 2805.11(b) and will terminate on December 31 of the final year of the lease term. You may submit an application for renewal under § 2805.14(g). A leaseholder may not construct any facilities on the right-of-way until the BLM issues a notice to proceed or other written form of approval to begin surface disturbing activities.

(b) Rent. You must pay any rent as specified in § 2806.52.

(c) POD. You must submit, within 2 years of the lease issuance date, a POD that:

(1) Is consistent with the development schedule and other requirements in the POD template posted at http://www.blm.gov; and

(2) Addresses all pre-development and development activities.

(d) Cost recovery. You must pay the reasonable costs for the BLM or other Federal agencies to review and approve your POD and to monitor your lease. To expedite review of your POD and monitoring of your lease, you may notify BLM in writing that you are waiving paying reasonable costs and are electing to pay the full actual costs incurred by the BLM.

(e) Performance and reclamation bond. (1) For Solar Energy Development, you must provide a bond in the amount of $10,000 per acre prior to written approval to proceed with ground disturbing activities.

(2) For Wind Energy Development, you must provide a bond in the amount of $10,000 per authorized turbine less than 1 MW in nameplate capacity or $20,000 per authorized turbine equal or greater than 1 MW in nameplate capacity prior to written approval to proceed with ground disturbing activities.

(3) For testing and monitoring sites authorized under a development lease, you must provide a bond in the amount of $2,000 per site prior to receiving written approval to proceed with ground disturbing activities.

(4) The BLM will adjust the solar and wind energy development bond amounts every 10 years using the change in the IPD-GDP for the preceding 10-year period rounded to the nearest $100. This 10-year average will be adjusted at the same time as the Per Acre Rent Schedule for linear rights-of-way under § 2806.22.

(f) Assignments. You may apply to assign your lease under § 2807.21, and if an assignment is approved, the BLM will not make any changes to the lease terms or conditions, as provided for by § 2807.21(e), except for modifications required under § 2805.15(e).

(g) Due diligence of operations. You must start construction within 5 years and begin generation of electricity no later than 7 years from the date of lease issuance, as specified in your approved POD. A request for an extension may be granted for up to 3 years with a show of good cause and approval by the BLM.