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NIMBY Feinstein nixes solar, wind farms
12/24/09 12:22 PM EST
Senator Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who chairs the Senate subcommittee that oversees the Interior Department, has scuttled plans to build 13 multi-million dollar solar plants and wind farms on a million acres in California’s Mojave Desert proposed as a national monument. Feinstein’s move will severely complicate her state’s quixotic effort to obtain a third of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020.
The desert land was bought for nearly $45 million in private funds and $18 million in federal funds by an environmental group, which then donated it to the federal government for the purpose of conservation. In 2005, however, President Bush ordered that renewal energy production be fast-tracked on all public lands including the Mojave, which is among the sunniest in the nation.
"This is arguably the best solar land in the world, and Senator Feinstein shouldn't be allowed to take this land off the table without a proper and scientific environmental review," said Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a partner in a venture capital firm that invested in BrightSource, a developer forced to cancel a large solar project in the monument area.
Union officials who were happily contemplating the creation of thousands of “green” construction jobs aren’t too happy with Sen. Feinstein, either.
"Unfortunately, Senator Feinstein wants to wall off a large part of the desert based on historical land ownership rather than science," said Marc D. Joseph, a lawyer for California Unions for Reliable Energy.
Topics
Washington Examiner , Beltway Confidential , Sen. Dianne Feinstein , solar farm , wind farm , Mojave Desert , Robert F. Kennedy , Jr. , BrightSource , California Unions for Reliable EnergyFollow The Examiner
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