Mojave Desert Blog

The Department of Defense's recent request to close off additional public lands in Nevada is simply unreasonable in light of the vast amount of land already available to the military for testing and training purposes.  The military is preparing to ask Congress to expand two of its test and training ranges in Nevada by as much as 1,416 square miles, including portions of popular public lands outside of Las Vegas.  The military has not explained why the 21,000 square miles of existing test and training ranges throughout the southwestern states of California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, and New Mexico are not sufficient (this total does not count other training ranges in other states and the Pacific Ocean, or smaller military facilities in the southwestern states). At this early stage in the environmental review process, the military has only explained that expanding the Nellis Test and Training Range (NTTR) would “improve the range’s capacity to support testing and training.” For the pr

The Secretary of Interior on Wednesday will finalize the Federal portion of the Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan ( DRECP ) after years of effort by Federal, State, and local agencies to identify which lands will be conserved for future generations, and which lands will be zoned for utility-scale renewable energy projects. Interior released the final environmental analysis for the plan in November 2015 .  Wednesday's roll out of a Record of Decision normally would constitute a rubber stamp approval of that analysis and officially put the plan into effect, but there are indications that Interior has tinkered further with the plan.  Here are some things to look for in the announcement, broken down by different stakeholders calls for changes to the plan: Not Enough Destruction Zones: The renewable energy industry has loudly complained that the 600+ square miles of new industrial zones – known as Development Focus Areas (DFA) – that the DRECP is expected to designa