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Conservation Group Files Lawsuit Against Department of Energy Over Southwest Energy Corridor
ewire.com January 10, 2008Transmission Line Corridor Will Exacerbate Global Warming, Harm Public Health
| LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA. On behalf of the
Center for Biological Diversity, the Western Environmental Law Center today
filed suit in federal court in the central district of California to challenge
the Department of Energy's October 2007 designation of the Southwest National
Interest Electric Transmission Corridor - a sweeping, 45-million-acre area that
includes seven southern California and three Arizona counties - for failing to
analyze the environmental impacts of the corridor. |
| "The Energy Department cannot turn southern California and
western Arizona into an energy farm for Los Angeles and San Diego without taking
a hard look at the environmental impacts of doing so," said Amy Atwood, staff
attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity. "The Southwest Energy
Corridor will have far-reaching environmental impacts that must be considered
before moving forward." |
| The Department of Energy designated the Southwest Corridor
pursuant to the Energy Policy Act of 2005, allowing for "fast-track" approval of
utility and power line projects within the corridor, nullifying state and
federal environmental laws, and enabling energy companies to condemn private
land for new high-voltage transmission lines. |
| "The Energy Department must ensure that the environmental impacts
of creating such an expansive electric transmission corridor are closely
analyzed and documented before any designation takes effect," said Megan
Anderson of the Western Environmental Law Center, lead attorney on the case. "By
failing to do so, the Energy Department is giving inefficient, transmission-based electricity an unfair advantage over conservation and more
locally-based energy production - an unwise choice that we cannot afford in this
era of climate change." |
| The 45-million-acre energy corridor includes millions of acres of
protected federal and state lands in California and Arizona, including 3 million
acres of national parks and national wildlife refuges such as the Kofa National
Wildlife Refuge, Sonoran Desert National Monument, Joshua Tree National Park,
and Carrizo Plain National Monument. The vast corridor also includes the
21-million-acre California Desert Conservation Area 750,000 acres of Bureau of
Land Management national monuments and a portion of the Las Californias, an
internationally recognized biodiversity hotspot that is home to hundreds of
protected or rare species. Altogether there are nearly 7.5 million acres of
federally designated wilderness, wilderness study areas, and citizen-proposed
wilderness within the energy corridor. There are also at least 95 species that
are listed as threatened or endangered with extinction under the Endangered
Species Act. |
| The Center's suit is being filed as the National Wildlife
Federation, Sierra Club, and Piedmont Environmental Council are also preparing
to challenge the Energy Department's designation of the Mid-Atlantic National
Interest Electric Transmission Corridor in U.S. District Court in Pennsylvania
under federal environmental laws. |
| The Center is being represented by Anderson and Matt Kenna of the Western Environmental Law Center, and Atwood of the Center. The suit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the central district of California. |