Green groups have welcomed European Commission guidelines underlining the need for thorough environmental impact assessments before governments designate areas for the accelerated deployment of wind turbines, solar arrays and other clean energy infrastructure, amid a drive to reduce dependence on fossil fuel imports from Russia. The RePowerEU plan hastily drafted amid the energy crisis following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 promised an easing of planning permitting, long identified by the wind power industry as a major bottleneck. But environmental groups were alarmed by the prospect o…