42 U.S.C. § 15851 — Assessment of renewable energy resources

(a) Resource assessment. Within 6 months after August 8, 2005, and every year after that, the Secretary must review the existing assessments of the country's renewable energy resources — solar, wind, biomass, marine, geothermal, and hydroelectric. The Secretary must do new assessments when needed, taking into account changes in markets, available technology, and other relevant factors. (b) Contents of reports. Within 1 year after August 8, 2005, and every year after that, the Secretary must publish a report based on that assessment. The report must include (1) a detailed inventory of the available renewable energy resources and their characteristics; and (2) any other useful information for developing those resources, such as the surrounding terrain, nearby population and load centers, nearby energy infrastructure, the location of energy and water resources, cost estimates for developing each resource, the barriers to building enough transmission from remote resources to current and future markets, recommendations for removing or addressing those barriers, and ways to give grid access without unfairly disadvantaging renewable or other energy producers. (c) Authorization of appropriations. Congress authorized $10,000,000 for this section for each of fiscal years 2006 through 2010.