From today’s Wall Street Journal Political Diary:
Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, a California Republican, thinks he has a partial solution to America’s dependence on high-priced foreign oil. But he says liberals and environmentalists are rejecting it.
Mr. Rohrabacher — who notes 130 pending applications for solar power projects on federal land administered by the Bureau of Land Management — has introduced a bill to allow the building of such plants without environmental-impact studies. He tells me that though the BLM has lifted a moratorium on new solar projects on public land that it imposed in 2005, applications are still being clogged up in a bureaucratic pipeline and no new permits have been issued to date. "We need solutions on many levels, and freeing up solar power bottlenecks is one of them," he says.
Debbie Cook, Democratic mayor of Huntington Beach and Mr. Rohrabacher’s opponent in this fall’s election, opposes his bill as an "extreme position." Environmental groups also oppose it, saying large swaths of vegetation could be disrupted because a sizeable solar power facility requires up to two square miles of land. "If not properly scrutinized, the solar plants have the potential to destroy wildlife habitat, affect water resources, limit outdoor recreation opportunities and prove to be eyesores," is how the Daily Pilot, a local newspaper in Mr. Rohrabacher’s Orange County district, summarized the objections of local environmentalists.
Mr. Rohrabacher is amused by the controversy. "Once again the environmental community has demonstrated that they care more about animals than about people," he told me. "I rest my case."
— John Fund
September 12th, 2008 at 12:00 am
Fantastic idea! The Congressman’s proposal is intending to address the process of environmental extortion that regularly accompanies high-profile energy projects in California. This process, which we call “Greenmail” begins with the filing of a Petition to Intervene by a group calling itself California Unions for Reliable Energy (CURE). The group is actually a San Francisco based law firm called Adams, Broadwell, Joseph and Cardoso. While the petition works its way from the Environmental Impact Report process, the local unions begin forcing a union-only Project Labor Agreement (PLA) on the contracting entity. In one fashion or another, it is made clear to the contracting entity that should they sign a PLA, the environmental issues that CURE is raising will magically disappear. The vast majority of Power Plants that have been built in the past 10 years were subject to this heinous practice. Many economists have suggested that the effects of forced union agreements has cost the taxpayers of California billions of dollars and has slowed the approval of such projects to the point where it takes years to gain approval. Solar and other renuable energy projects are the latest target for Greenmail.
September 12th, 2008 at 12:00 am
So if understand the argument correctly, the environmentally friendly solar power is dangerous to the environment!