Investigation Blasts Stimulus Spending on Destructive Solar
The non-partisan Center for Public Integrity conducted an investigation of projects receiving Federal stimulus funds and found that Washington intentionally ignored environmental damage when granting money to several projects. Among the recipients singled out by the Center's investigation is BrightSource Energy's Ivanpah Solar Energy Generation System, which received a stimulus-backed loan guarantee in the amount of $1.37 billion. The project will be built on 5.6 square miles of prime desert tortoise habitat in the northeastern Mojave Desert.
From the Center's report:
From the Center's report:
According to documents, the Obama administration has unequivocally concluded that one of the Energy Department’s biggest stimulus outlays — a $1.37 billion loan guarantee for the massive Ivanpah solar power installation to be built on federal lands in California’s Mojave Desert — will negatively affect the environment.
The solar plant represents one of the few dozen stimulus projects required by the department to undergo the most comprehensive NEPA review. It was approved by both the department and Interior’s Bureau of Land Management earlier this year even after the environmental analysis had found that it would have a “direct, adverse” impact on 3,471 acres of prime habitat for the endangered desert tortoise, according to a copy of that study obtained by the Center.
Great find Shawn.
ReplyDeleteWe, of course, knew all along what a waste all of this was, but no one listened in the mainstream media except for a very few, maybe this report by an independent, unbiased source will finally blow the lid off of this sordid story.
I found it amazing myself that evidently no one gave a hoot when Harry Reid when to BrightSource's Oakland headquarters for a million dollar fundraiser before his re-election, talk about your suspicious coincidences-----
Alas, that's a subject perhaps of another investigation by this group.
Bill Mcdonald