California Energy Commission DOCKETED 09-RENEW EO-1 TN # 786 FEB23 2015 February 22, 2015 California Energy Commission Dockets Office, MS-4 Docket No. 09-RENEW EO-01 1516 Ninth Street Sacramento, CA 95814-5512 [email protected] Sent via email and U.S. Mail RE: Draft Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan and Environmental Impact Statement Please accept and fully consider these comments and recommendations on the draft Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan (DRECP) and Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) on behalf of The Wilderness Society (TWS). The mission of TWS is to protect wilderness and inspire Americans to care for our wild places. TWS has a longstanding investment in the protection and conservation of public lands in the California Desert. We are also invested in finding the best places, outside of conservation areas, to develop cleaner energy resources to meet the energy needs of Americans while reducing the impact of climate change. We applaud you on the goals of this landscape level planning effort and look forward to working with the agencies on improving various aspects of the draft plan in order to further advance these goals. We appreciate your consideration of these comments and welcome any questions or feedback you may have. Contents I. INTRODUCTION........................................................................................................................ 2 II. OVERARCHING LEGAL ISSUES ............................................................................................. 3 III. NATIONAL CONSERVATION LANDS ADDITIONS ............................................................... 13 IV. LANDS WITH WILDERNESS CHARACTERISTICS................................................................ 41 V. AREAS OF CRITICAL ENVIRONMENTAL CONCERN .......................................................... 67 VI. ENERGY DEVELOPMENT ................................................................................................... 71 VII. RECREATION ..................................................................................................................... 86 VIII. COUNTY ENGAGEMENT ................................................................................................. 95 IX. ADAPTIVE MANAGEMENT ................................................................................................. 97 X. CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................... 101 XI. ATTACHMENTS ................................................................................................................ 102 1 I. INTRODUCTION The California Desert is a remarkable landscape. The stark contrast between its extreme heat and bitter cold, primitive beauty, and surprisingly varied and rich ecosystems make the desert unlike any other natural area in the country. Its unique character also makes it a high profile location for large-scale renewable energy development projects, including wind and solar, which then necessitates development of associated transmission. As a result, the desert hangs in a delicate balance between a developed and an undeveloped landscape. Recognizing the multiple uses and values present in the California Desert, the draft Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan (DRECP) makes a strong effort to properly address both the conservation and clean energy needs of California, and sets a valuable precedent for future planning decisions. The DRECP comes at an important moment for California and the nation. The 2014 National Climate Assessment paints a grim future for the arid southwestern states. “Climate changes pose challenges for an already parched region that is expected to get hotter and, in its southern half, significantly drier. Increased heat and changes to rain and snowpack will send ripple effects throughout the region, affecting 56 million people – a population expected to increase to 94 million by 2050 – and its critical agriculture sector. Severe and sustained drought will stress water sources, already over-utilized in many areas, forcing increasing competition among farmers, energy producers, urban dwellers, and ecosystems for the region’s most precious resource.” These changes are beginning to play out. Last year was the warmest year on record globally, the hottest year on record in California and also the driest year in California since the state started measuring rainfall in 1849, the start of the gold rush and one year before California was granted statehood. Motivated in large part by the need to take steps to respond to these challenges, Governor Jerry Brown recently announced a goal to move California beyond the current mandate of 33% renewables by 2020 (a goal the state has practically reached, at least on paper) to 50% renewables by 2030. Following on the heels of the Governor’s announcement, state lawmakers introduced a package of bills to help enact the 50% by 2030 target.1 Meeting the target will rely on a range of options including increased energy efficiency and demand reduction programs, distributed generation including rooftop solar, and some utility-scale renewable energy projects. There will be a continuing need for the California Desert to provide some of the state’s needed new clean electricity.2 To ensure new energy resources can be tapped without damaging the region’s most sensitive wildlife, wild lands, recreational opportunities and tourism assets, a sound plan at the right geographic and ecological scale is essential for local, state and federal agencies to help plan for the future of the desert and ensure these projects are sited in the right places. The DRECP is an opportunity to do just that, by moving beyond the current model of land use planning (which limits the scope of planning to subunits within manmade boundaries) toward a more dynamic, broad, adaptive planning process that takes more factors into consideration to make smart planning decisions. Using this landscape level approach, planning and land use management decisions should be more consistent, compatible, and sustainable over the long-term, and allow agencies to better identify and monitor important resource considerations like ecological integrity, wilderness values, connectivity, areas for climate adaptation, wildlife habitat, restoration opportunities, protection of cultural resources and recreational uses. Similarly, the DRECP initiative illustrates how public land agencies can work together to develop a coordinated, cross-jurisdictional management strategy for both resource conservation and reduced impact renewable energy development. 1 See http://sd24.senate.ca.gov/news/2015-02-10-california-climate-leadership-package-announced. The package also includes bills to reduce carbon emissions. 2 See, e.g., http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-renewable-goals-20150108-story.html. 2 In addition, the DRECP is also charting a course for developing new agency policies and can provide a template for future BLM planning decisions. Through its extensive scoping, local, regional and national outreach, webinars, public meetings, and numerous online tools, the DRECP process has been inclusive and substantive, and has resulted in a comprehensive draft plan that covers multiple boundaries, jurisdictions, field offices, and interests. In refining agency policies and finalizing its Planning 2.0 initiative, BLM needs useful examples of what effective landscape level planning looks like and how the agency can be more responsive to environmental and social change. The DRECP planning process offers a valuable framework, which BLM can build and improve on for its future landscape level planning initiatives. Finally, while the effort to draft the DRECP has been substantial, the plan still must be improved and finalized in a timely manner in order to be effective. Development will move forward with or without the DRECP; and without it, millions of acres sensitive, but unprotected, lands will remain open and subject to unplanned proposals for energy development, wasting years of effort on the part of agencies and stakeholders. In addition, the BLM will miss an opportunity to show how conservation and energy development planning can happen simultaneously and compatibly. Therefore, ensuring the DRECP is finalized and implemented as soon as possible is essential for its success. Although currently incomplete, inconsistent at times, and in need of revision and improvements, the draft DRECP marks significant progress toward a smarter planning framework where conservation lands are prioritized and renewable energy development is limited to those areas where ecological impacts are low, and production potential high. We recognize that the DRECP consists of three separate, but coordinated, planning efforts—(1) a set of BLM land use plan amendments, (2) a Federal general conservation plan and incidental take permit issued to the California Energy Commission (and possibly other State agencies or subdivisions), and (3) a California Natural Community Conservation Plan (NCCP). We also recognize that meshing these three separate planning processes is not a simple matter. The following comments and recommendations are primarily focused on the BLM land use plan amendments to the California Desert Conservation Area plan. II. OVERARCHING LEGAL ISSUES The DRECP is subject to a number of legal and policy regimes. For federal public lands, the DRECP incorporates both lands within the California Desert Conservation Area (CDCA) and lands outside the