Environmentalists oppose California power line

New York Times : Some of the most productive renewable energy fields in the world are located near El Centro, California, a little more than 100 miles east of San Diego. And because California requires utilities to meet quotas for shifting from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources, San Diego Gas and Electric has spent seven years and $100 million trying to start work on a 117-mile high-voltage line to transport that energy to consumers. Although the line won approval from the US Forest Service, the federal Bureau of Land Management, and the State of California, neighbors and wilderness advocates have filed lawsuits challenging those decisions because they believe that the transmission line may also be used to transport electricity from a plant in Mexico that burns natural gas and that it could ruin the fragile wilderness of the area, writes Matthew Wald for the New York Times.