Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan has holes, groups say

Environmental groups and residents are finding what they call discrepancies, omissions and reasons for concern in the 8,000-page Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan. During public hearings here last week and across a seven-county area since Oct. 20, residents have been expressing concerns with what has been called a historic cooperative planning effort between state and federal agencies focused on where renewable energy plants should go and where they should not go on 22.5 million acres of federal and non-federal California desert land. The plan was unveiled Sept. 23 when Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell visited a wind farm near Palm Springs to celebrate this conservation milestone and to underscore the importance of President Obama’s Climate Action Plan. That plan called for a doubling-down of production of clean energy on public lands while protecting their natural resources. The public comment period officially closes Jan. 9, although last week Jim Kenna, the federal Bureau of Land Management’s California director, all but confirmed in an interview that an extension period would be granted, likely this week, due to widespread demand. Kenna said that the DRECP shows the boundaries for Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s proposed Mojave Trails National Monument and the Sand to Snow National Monument. Last week at the Whitewater Preserve, Feinstein, D-Calif., said she would introduce legislation to create those monuments, located primarily in the San Bernardino County section of the Mojave Desert, during the first day of the new Congress next year. The draft DRECP spans portions of San Bernardino, Los Angeles, Riverside, San Diego, Imperial, Inyo and Kern counties. It involves a cooperative planning effort between the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, California Energy Commission and the California Department of Fish and Game. The plan identifies development focus areas that may accommodate up to 20,000 megawatts of power from renewable energy projects and associated transmissions over the next 25 years. It also identifies conservation areas, sensitive plant and wildlife species and a strategy for their management into the future...more

Do you think the enviros will wait for the feds to come up with a "better" plan?  I doubt it.  Watch for the Obama administration to endorse the Feinstein bill and if it doesn't move then pull out El Presidente's pen for a monument designation.  This, of course, puts the R's in a bind as they negotiate:  accept the bill or be faced with a Presidential proclamation that they have no control over.  Why are R's in this position?  Because they haven't amended the Antiquities Act when they had the chance, i.e., they put themselves in this position. They are being beat up with a hammer they handed El Presidente and have refused to remove from his toolbox.