I voted for it before I voted against it..

From the New York Times: A US Senator from California has put the kibosh on a large scale solar plant in the Mojave desert.

"Senator Dianne Feinstein introduced legislation in Congress on Monday 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 is symptomatic of the NIMBY syndrome---Not In My Back Yard.  How are we to take steps to energy independence and and reduce carbon emissions if we dont actually take a stand and physically do something about it.

"Her intervention in the Mojave means it will be more difficult for California utilities to achieve a goal, set by the state, of obtaining a third of their electricity from renewable sources by 2020; projects in the monument area could have supplied a substantial portion of that power. "

 Entreprenuers want to be a part of the solution, but when a single Senator can squash a project at the behest of a small interest group (relative to the whole who would benefit) then, well, that says something about our system of representation.

Developers of the projects have already postponed several proposals or abandoned them entirely.

An interesting aside is this comment by a Kennedy:

"This is arguably the best solar land in the world, and Senator Feinstein shouldn’t be allowed to take this land off the table without a proper and scientific environmental review,” said Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the environmentalist and a partner with a venture capital firm that invested in a solar developer called BrightSource Energy. In September, BrightSource canceled a large project in the monument area."

Please see this link for another lesson on NIMBY related to this statement by RFK Jr.

(Got idea for this post (and many others from Division of Labour...I have to get better at citing sources for entries)