Tuesday, April 15, 2014

BLM's Land Dispute & Sen. Harry Reid

Some of the marginal news sources (like WND.com) and completely whacko-land sources (like Alex Jones' InfoWars.com) have been claiming that BLM's dispute with the rancher in north Clark County is really about a corrupt deal that Sen. Reid (D-NV) had worked out involving his son, the Chinese, and a big solar power plant to go on that location.  I have been reluctant to say anything about it because there was really nothing in a respectable news source that would fit this, except for this article in March 21, 2014 BusinessWire:
MOAPA, Nev.--()--Today, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (NV) joined representatives from the Moapa Band of Paiutes, executives from First Solar, Inc. (Nasdaq: FSLR) and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP), as well as other community, government and energy industry leaders to celebrate the start of construction of the 250 Megawatt (MW)AC Moapa Southern Paiute Solar Project. The project is located on the Moapa River Indian Reservation just north of Las Vegas, and has a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with the LADWP to deliver clean, solar energy for 25 years to the City of Los Angeles. 
I can't seem to find anything that ties the recent kerfuffle involving BLM and this particular parcel.

UPDATE: Breitbart has an article that says the lands involved with Sen. Reid's son's crony capitalism are more than 20 miles away from Bundy's lands.  This makes it quite a stretch to claim anything but coincidence.  The Breitbart article suggests that whatever legitimate concerns both sides might have, there is plenty of gray involving both BLM and Bundy's assertions of being completely in the right.

UPDATE 2: A reader points to a since scrubbed federal document that indicates that Bundy's grazing laws were needed as environmental mitigation for a solar power project.
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4 comments:

  1. AnonymousApril 15, 2014 at 11:54 AM

    Here is one:

    "Now, questions surrounding family ties are flaring again in Nevada around the Senate majority leader. He and his oldest son, Rory, are both involved in an effort by a Chinese energy giant, ENN Energy Group, to build a $5 billion solar farm and panel manufacturing plant in the southern Nevada desert."

    http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/31/us-usa-china-reid-solar-idUSBRE87U06D20120831

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  2. JimApril 15, 2014 at 12:11 PM

    I heard the location of the solar project was about 20 miles from where the BLM-Bundy revolt took place. IIRC, I got that from Breitbart which had a very balanced article on the situation - much more balanced than I expected. If this is accurate, I don't know how 20 miles relates to the issue of grazing.

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  3. asdfApril 15, 2014 at 2:05 PM

    Here's another good article on the subject. Dropping yet another show, in a way:

    http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2014/04/why-you-should-be-sympathetic-toward-cliven-bundy.php

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  4. RevGregApril 16, 2014 at 5:02 AM

    The documented evidence which was deleted from a .gov site (but lovingly preserved for posterity) shows that the Bundy Ranch was cited as part of a wildlife habitat mitigation site for the solar project...in essence, they were allowed to trash the habitat and kill the endangered species in one location by showing that they were preserving a similar habitat elsewhere. The exact language used was:

    "Non-Governmental Organizations have expressed concern that the regional mitigation strategy for the Dry Lake Solar Energy Zone utilizes Gold Butte as the location for offsite mitigation for impacts from solar development, and that those restoration activities are not durable with the presence of trespass cattle."

    http://d56amtpp2y9sx.cloudfront.net/sites/default/files/imagecache/full_page_image/inline_image_uploads/CACHED-PAGE-!!!-Cattle_Trespass_Impacts_-_2014-04-12_18.56.45.png

    ReplyDelete

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