Yesterday California's Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein introduced legislation that would ensure another million acres in a remote area of the Mojave Desert would not be available for OHV use, and would also not be available for previously proposed wind and solar farms to help produce energy to help offset our dependence on fossil fuel and especially to help California offset our ever increasing energy costs.
The bill, while supposedly protecting 5 existing OHV areas from being trampled like so many before it, assigns nearly a million acres as National Monuments, which would effectively close them to OHVs.
Many of us know that the ATV and offroading community generates large amounts of money in the areas we ride, and we all know how badly we need renewable energy sources. But because of Sen. Feinstein's "Not in My Back Yard" legislation, BrightSource Energy Inc and Stirling Energy Systems are now canceling plans to build wind and solar farms in obscure, out of the way places in the Mohave Desert.
I haven't figured out all the details to this proposal yet, and while it does have some good news for ATVs and Offroading enthusiasts, there is a clear dark side that potentially hurts the OHV community overall.
Read the California Desert Protection Act of 2010 for more information.
Image © Matt Finley