Senator Dianne Feinstein introduced utterly idiotic legislation to protect a million acres of the Mojave Desert in California by scuttling some 13 big solar plants and wind farms planned for the region. This sort of thing flies in the face of other actions she takes. Even with the bill not yet being passed in congress it has resulted in developers postponing several proposals or abandoning them entirely. The California agency charged with planning a renewable energy transmission grid has rerouted proposed power lines to avoid the monument.
On the one hand there is environmental protection to be considered. While the Mojave desert is a lot of land and underutilized by human habitation, it apparently has some sensitive environmental issues.
On the other hand there is the question of how the heck this society is going to power all the gizmos we live with.
For example in a podcast I recorded earlier this year, "Offshore drilling on the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf, an Interior Department hearing, held in San Francisco, April 16, 2009," includes strong statements by this same Sen. Feinstein saying no-way-no-how will we allow for oil drilling off California's coast. In that podcast I make a connection that by opposing oil drilling she has to have policies that somehow make up for the "energy" resource lost by not tapping the oil known to be off California's coast.
Our society has an insatiable and ever increasing need for energy. That "energy" has to come from somewhere. Currently it's coming from nasty fossil fuel resources and the mining of those resources has nasty side effects. Of course banning oil drilling means the nasty side effects from oil drilling do not occur.
During that same podcast she is recorded being in support of renewable energy resources such as wind and solar energy. But here she is introducing a bill that scuttles the opportunity of deploying renewable energy resources.
This sort of hypocrisy is stupid and outrageous.
