Posted on 03/20/2009 7:20:45 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
WASHINGTON (AP) — More than 500,000 acres in the Mojave Desert would be off-limits to wind or solar energy production under legislation Sen. Dianne Feinstein intends to introduce. The land is coveted by companies seeking to develop alternative energy, setting up a potential clash with one of the more powerful members of Congress.
The land would seem ideally suited for solar energy production. Nineteen companies have submitted applications to build solar or wind facilities on the property, but such development would violate the spirit of what conservationists had intended when they donated much of the land to the public, said Feinstein, the California Democrat.
The Wildlands Conservancy orchestrated the government's purchase of the land between 1999-2004. It negotiated a discount sale from the real estate arm of the former Santa Fe and Southern Pacific Railroad and then contributed $40 million to help pay for the purchase. David Myers, the conservancy's executive director, said the solar projects would do great harm to the region's desert tortoise population.
"It would destroy the entire Mojave Desert ecosystem," said David Myers, executive director of The Wildlands Conservancy.
Feinstein said the lands in question were donated or purchased with the intent that they would be protected forever. But the Bureau of Land Management considers the land now open to all types of development, except mining.
That policy led the state to consider large swaths of the land for future renewable energy production.
"This is unacceptable," Feinstein said in a letter to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. "I urge you to direct the BLM to suspend any further consideration of leases to develop former railroad lands for renewable energy or for any other purpose."
(Excerpt) Read more at mercurynews.com ...
Yup, May well be .. wow.
hmmmmm
Great. So they'll just use "spirit energy" to turn the turbines.
Holy Geez! They even block the wind power!
I seem to be the only one saying this - I am certain that whether directly or through environmental groups, the dems are getting payments from the Saudis and OPEC.
All righty then. Time to drill in ANWR and offshore here in CA. And, BTW, I used to live in the Mojave Desert (China Lake) and its looks would be vastly improved by hundreds of solar panels. There are deserts and there are UGLY deserts.
The Senator says all the “green” projects must be developed somewhere else, though still in this country so we achieve energy independence, but any money appropriated to stimulate “green” projects must be spent in my district. Get it? Got it?
Whereas I say the people who gave away the property got a tax write-off for doing so, and they can kiss my ruddy butt if they think they are entitled to control it having done so. Pass a law to put windmills right there first of all to see if they work. The property is off the tax rolls anyway and probably doing nothing or next to nothing for the common good.
Your clarity is exceptional, LOL.
If stupid birds kill themselves by flying into the windmills, that will improve the species—the smarter birds will pass their DNA to the future generations. Evolution by way of natural selection at work.
That is a keeper. So true.
can we still put a nuclear power plant there?
totally agree with her on this one. Mojave is too pretty for such ugliness.
I think I have advanced sKerry disease, I waffle a lot lately.
This means the area in question is not exceptional. My only beef is that "wind&solar" are likely to be just one more worthless batch of boondoggles and even ordinary desert lands don't need to be wasted on nothing.
So Fineswine is a NIMBY. Maybe we can lock her and Crazy Uncle Teddy up in the attic together and let them duke it out.
Or perhaps Feinstein has friends who would benefit from the wind/solar energy contracts going to a second-choice site.
California produces only one third of the energy it consumes.
I say cut them off — no more imports of oil, coal or electricity from other states.
If they can’t make enough for themselves, from their own resources — tough.
“I thought they wanted alternative energy?”
I saw this coming from a mile away... as I posted earlier this month.
“And, besides the economic fairy tales propagandized by the environazis, there’s another fable that will be punctured as soon as widespread development of this so called “green” energy starts - the fable that this is less environmentally invasive than conventional power sources. Once thousands of square miles of “fragile”, “pristine” desert and prairie start getting trampled on, dug up, and covered with solar panels, windmills and transmission lines you will hear the same activist ignoramuses howl against that which they were pushing when it didn’t exist. (They love energy that doesn’t exist!)”
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