Federal and state officials restart desert renewal energy plan
WASHINGTON — Federal and state officials said Tuesday they will allow solar, wind and other renewable energy development on 400,000 acres of public lands in the California desert, while setting aside 5 million acres for conservation as part of a big push by the Obama and Brown administrations to combat climate change.
The long-awaited decision covers millions of acres of public land in one of California’s last comparatively undeveloped frontiers, seeking to correct what were widely perceived as mistakes during the first years of the Obama presidency when publicly subsidized, industrial-scale solar projects were plopped on pristine desert habitat.
Tuesday’s announcement represents the first phase of the Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan, which was created in 2008 to look at the 22 million-acre California desert in its entirety, rather than in isolated segments, before approving solar and wind projects.
[...] David Lamfrom, director of the California desert program for the National Parks and Conservation Association, said other areas such as Soda Mountain, the site of a proposed 3,000-acre solar project straddling a bighorn sheep corridor in San Bernardino County, remain on the table for development.
Lamfrom called Soda Mountain “arguably the most controversial and ill-advised proposal in the California desert,” saying it continues to move toward approval “despite incredible opposition and lack of a buyer for the project’s electricity.”
The announcement by Interior Secretary Sally Jewell and a bevy of top state and federal officials comes just weeks before President Obama and Gov. Jerry Brown head to Paris for negotiations on a global pact to cut carbon emissions.
Obama wants to generate 20,000 megawatts of renewable energy from public lands by 2020; the Brown administration hopes to generate half the state’s electricity from renewable energy by 2030.
[...] many of the areas, particularly in the West Mojave, that are set aside for development “still contain highly sensitive habitat and key movement corridors for listed species that are already struggling for survival,” said Ileene Anderson, a senior scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity.
Smaller desert conservation groups have urged planners to focus instead on small-scale rooftop solar panels on homes, businesses and parking lots where the electricity is being consumed.
In comments on the draft plan earlier this year, the federal Environmental Protection Agency seemed to agree, urging that planners re-evaluate the need for utility-scale facilities in the desert in light of the sharp decline in the cost of rooftop solar.