About a week ago, an article hinted that the proposed Mother Road National Monument in California’s Mojave Desert was looking more likely.
On Tuesday, the Press-Enterprise reports that the monument appeared to be “gaining momentum.”
Part of the reason was because a proposed solar-power plant in the desert had been scrapped and another said it would put most of its plants outside the monument area. Another reason is because the proposed monument area has become smaller, thus giving the solar-power companies less of a reason to encroach on park land.
I think the talk about the “pristine” environment of the Mojave is overblown, particularly since a prominent former U.S. highway and a major rail line slice right through the area. But the fact a compromise will be reached — and that much-needed alternate energy sources will still be developed — is a good thing.
UPDATE: The Investor’s Business Daily has an interesting editorial about this issue. Some choice excerpts:
You can always find someone with a passionate argument about building something large and visible on empty land. Often those arguments prevail, not because they make sense but because those who make them have a law or a powerful politician on their side. This is a bicoastal problem, as the aspiring wind farmers of Nantucket Sound will tell you. […]
America needs more energy from all feasible sources. Without it, we face a very different, far more limited standard of living in our future. The argument that “they can always build it somewhere else” is running thin, because that “somewhere else” is likely to be someone else’s pet cause.