Joshua Tree cries foul as Trump targets California desert for energy projects

For the nearly 200 people who crowded into a community center in Joshua Tree on Thursday night, it was like déjà vu all over again, all over again, all over again.

Many of them had already spent years attending meetings on the mouthful of an acronym known as the DRECP. They had urged government officials to keep big solar and wind farms out of the pristine California desert lands they cherish. They hadn't necessarily loved the government's final plan, which took eight years to complete, even though it protected millions of acres of public lands. But nobody filed any lawsuits.

Then came the Trump administration.

President Trump's Interior Department announced last month it was revisiting the Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan, an Obama-era document that was supposed to guide the next quarter-century of conservation and development across the California desert, one of the largest intact ecosystems in the lower 48 states. The plan sets aside 6.5 million acres for conservation, 3.6 million acres for recreation and 400,000 acres for renewable energy projects, on public lands starting at the Mexican border and stretching north through the high deserts of Riverside and Los Angeles counties, past Mojave National Preserve and into Owens Valley, between Death Valley and the Sierra Nevada.

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Trump administration officials say they're looking for ways to open more of those lands not only to renewable energy projects, but also to mining, grazing, off-roading and broadband internet infrastructure to serve rural communities. Trump's Interior secretary, Ryan Zinke, has already opened 1.3 million acres of California desert to mining.

"The DRECP took the better part of 10 years to put together," said Arch McCullogh, president of the Mojave Desert chapter of the California Native Plant Society, at Thursday night's meeting in the town of Joshua Tree just outside the national park. "It was only completed two years ago. Do we really want to open this can of worms again?"

Solar and wind companies could be the biggest beneficiaries. They've argued the plan is too restrictive, blocking development in windy areas and adding onerous environmental rules that make it difficult to build even in designated energy zones. Just one company has applied to build a renewable energy project in a development zone since the desert plan was finalized, according to Jeremiah Karuzas, an official at the federal Bureau of Land Management's California office — and that lone application was later withdrawn.

Still, Karuzas said, that doesn't necessarily mean the desert plan isn't working. The lack of new projects might be partially explained by California's slowing market for clean power; utilities have already contracted for most of the electricity they need to meet the state's 50 percent renewable energy mandate by 2030. And in the desert, there are already several projects in development that predate the DRECP and likely won't have to comply with its new environmental rules, including the 3,100-acre, 500-megawatt Palen solar farm east of the Coachella Valley, just outside Joshua Tree National Park.

Another possible factor, Karuzas said: the change in presidential administrations.

"Think about the reluctance of folks to maybe engage in a multi-billion (dollar) project with a change in administration. Whether the administration is for or against some sort of development, it doesn't really matter. It's the initial waiting period," Karuzas said.

Thursday night's meeting was a chance for federal employees to explain the legal process under which the Interior Department will reconsider the desert plan. It's likely some of those employees have no interest in revisiting the plan and are simply following orders from Washington, D.C. But whatever their personal feelings, they toed the party line Thursday, explaining that the review stems from Trump's March 2017 executive order on "promoting energy independence and economic growth," in which the president instructed federal agencies to "immediately review existing regulations that potentially burden the development or use of domestically produced energy resources."

Jerry Perez, who was tapped to lead the Bureau of Land Management's California office under President Obama, put it this way in a brief interview with The Desert Sun: "With a new administration and new priorities, how do we make sure that we as part of the executive branch help the administration succeed in those priority-setting goals?"

Perez said it may make sense to revisit parts of the desert plan, including some of the environmental requirements that have been criticized by renewable energy companies.

"How do we make sure that we still protect the resources we're talking about, but allow for development to occur?" Perez asked.

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But most of the people who attended Thursday's meeting are adamantly opposed to any changes to the desert plan — at least under the Trump administration.

Jane Smith, whose family owns the 29 Palms Inn just north of Joshua Tree National Park, said she knows from experience that tourists "don't want to see solar and wind scattered across our beautiful desert." Stacy Doolittle, who lives in the town of Joshua Tree, said preserving the desert plan "is about preserving our quality of life, and our local economies that depend on a well-managed landscape to support tourism."

"We live next to an enormous urban area, one of the largest in the world," Doolittle said. "Future generations are going to need to have someplace to go out of an urban jungle. And the desert it is. This is one of our last truly wild spaces in America."

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The Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan is meant to help California meet its clean energy goals while also protecting three dozen plants, mammals, fish, birds and reptiles from threats such as habitat fragmentation and climate change. The protected species include desert tortoises, Mojave fringe-toed lizards and golden eagles. State and federal agencies started work on the desert plan in 2008, in the midst of an energy "gold rush" that saw developers pitch solar and wind farms all over the open desert.

The people who attended Thursday night's meeting were skeptical, to say the least, that the Trump administration is interested in protecting desert ecosystems. One high desert resident griped, "We know that you-know-who hates California." Another expressed hope that "Trump will get indicted" before his appointees can undo the desert plan.

But April Sall, who chairs the California Desert Coalition, urged people who care about the desert not to give up hope. She said they've won battles they never thought they would win, including a campaign to defeat the Green Path North transmission line, which would have run through the land that is now Sand to Snow National Monument.

"If we don't stand up for our desert, who's going to?" Sall asked. "We don't know until we try. And the louder we are, the better our chances."

Three more public meetings are planned: Monday, March 5 at 1 p.m. at the DoubleTree Hotel in Sacramento; Tuesday, March 6 at 5 p.m. at the Bureau of Land Management's Bakersfield Field Office; and Wednesday, March 7 at 5 p.m. at UC Riverside's Palm Desert campus. These are "public scoping meetings," at which federal land managers will ask the public for written comments on what issues they should consider as they revisit the California desert plan, and how wide or narrow their review should be.

The Bureau of Land Management will only accept written comments at the meetings. Comments can also be emailed to BLM_CA_DRECP@blm.gov, or sent by mail to the BLM-California State Director, 2800 Cottage Way, Rm W-1623, Sacramento, CA 95825.

The comment deadline is March 22.

Sammy Roth writes about energy and the environment for The Desert Sun. He can be reached at sammy.roth@desertsun.com, (760) 778-4622 and @Sammy_Roth.