Border Energy Lawsuit Can Stand

Feb 12 - The San Diego Union-Tribune

A federal judge has issued a ruling favorable to environmental groups that want to force developers of power plants along the U.S.-Mexico border to adhere to U.S. pollution standards if emissions affect both countries.

Judge Irma Gonzalez refused requests Thursday from the operators of two Mexicali power plants to dismiss a lawsuit the groups filed in 2002. The lawsuit aims to deny the companies permission to operate transmission lines that send electricity from Mexico to the United States.

The original intent of the Border Power Plant Working Group, Wild Earth Advocates and Earth Justice when they filed the lawsuit was to compel the U.S.

Department of Energy and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to conduct a complete environmental impact study.

Gonzalez ruled that the government acted illegally, and the Energy Department voluntarily undertook the study. In June 2003, the judge let the developers -- Sempra Energy and InterGen -- use the transmission lines to send electricity from the Mexicali power plants into the United States.

The case is still active, however, because the plaintiffs have challenged the environmental impact study.

Although the case is against the two U.S. government agencies, Sempra and InterGen filed action as interveners, asking that the case be dismissed. Their request was denied in this week's ruling.

"It keeps us in the game, and that's important. Judge Gonzalez is still looking at it very carefully," Bill Powers of the Border Power Plant Working Group said yesterday. "It shows that the court is taking very seriously the potential environmental impact."

Gonzalez has yet to make a final determination on the case.

"Once this latest challenge is heard we are confident the Department of Energy and Bureau of Land Management will prevail," Sempra spokesman Art Larson said.

"In the past three years this activist group has failed every attempt to curtail and obstruct the delivery of much-needed power from our clean, efficient Mexicali plant to U.S. electricity customers," he said.

The plant supplied more that 3 million megawatt hours of electricity to the California market during 2005, Larson noted.

Representatives of InterGen were unavailable for comment yesterday.

Formerly owned by Shell and Bechtel, the company was sold last August to the Ontario (Canada) Teachers' Pension Plan and AIG Highstart Capital II.

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