On August 1, 2025, the Department of the Interior's Secretary issued Secretarial Order No. 3438, which directs agency staff to "optimize" federal lands when making leasing decisions by considering "a reasonable range of alternatives that includes projects with capacity densities meeting or exceeding that of the proposed project." The order goes on to raise the question of "whether the use of Federal lands for any wind and solar projects is consistent with the law, given these projects’ encumbrance on other land uses, as well as their disproportionate land use when reasonable project alternatives with higher capacity densities are technically and economically feasible."