Catherine J. K. Sandoval is the assigned Commissioner and Hallie Yacknin is the assigned Administrative Law Judge in this proceeding.
1. The proposed Red Bluff Substation project and all seven of the possible alternative combinations of the project components would have significant and unavoidable adverse impacts on air resources, cultural resources and visual resources.
2. Red Bluff Substation A with Access Road 2, in combination with Gen-Tie GT-A-2 and either Solar Farm Layout C or Solar Farm Layout B is the environmentally superior alternative.
3. The Commission has reviewed and considered the information contained in the EIS.
4. The EIS reflects the Commission's independent judgment and analysis.
5. The environmentally superior alternative will be infeasible if the BLM approves its preferred alternative combination, which utilizes Gen-Tie GT-A-1 instead of the environmentally superior Gen-Tie GT-A-2.
6. The Red Bluff Substation project will enable the Desert Solar Sunlight Farm to interconnect to the CAISO-controlled transmission grid, aiding in progress towards federal and state greenhouse gas reduction and renewable electricity goals, including the requirements set forth in AB 1078 (California Renewable Portfolio Standard Program), AB 32 (California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006), the Governor's Executive Order S-14-08 to increase the state's Renewable Energy Standard to 33% renewable energy by 2020, and Title XVII, Section 1705, of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (authorizing a new program for rapid deployment of, among other things, renewable energy projects).
7. The proposed project incorporates no-cost and low-cost measures to reduce potential EMF impacts by placing its major substation electrical equipment (such as transformers, switchracks, buses and underground duct banks) away from the substation property lines, and arranging the conductors of the proposed transmission line segments for magnetic field reduction along adjacent transmission corridors.
Conclusions of Law
1. The EIS was completed in compliance with CEQA.
2. In the event that the BLM grants a right of way for Gen-Tie Line GT-A-1 rather than Gen-Tie Line GT-A-2, this component of the environmentally superior alternative will be legally infeasible.
3. The contribution of the Red Bluff Substation project (Red Bluff Substation A with Access Road 2, in combination with either Solar Farm Layout C or Solar Farm Layout B and either Gen-tie GT-A-1 or Gen-Tie GT-A-2) to California's progress towards federal and state greenhouse gas reduction and renewable electricity goals is an overriding consideration that supports our approval of it, despite its significant unavoidable impacts on air resources, cultural resources and visual resources under the respective configurations.
4. The proposed project design is consistent with the Commission's EMF policy for implementing no-cost and low-cost measures to reduce potential EMF impacts.
5. SCE should be granted a permit to construct the Red Bluff Substation project, configured as Red Bluff Substation A and Access Road 2, in combination with either Solar Farm Layout C or Solar Farm Layout B, and with either Gen-tie GT-A-2 or Gen-Tie GT-A-2, in compliance with the Mitigation Monitoring and Reporting Plan included as Appendix L of the final EIS and attached to this order.
6. This proceeding should be closed.
7. This order should be effective immediately.
ORDER
IT IS ORDERED that:
1. Southern California Edison Company is granted a Permit to Construct the Red Bluff Substation project, configured as Red Bluff Substation A and Access Road 2, in combination with either Solar Farm Layout C or Solar Farm Layout B, and with either Gen-tie GT-A-1 or Gen-Tie GT-A-2, in compliance with the Mitigation Monitoring and Reporting Plan included as part of the final Environmental Impact Statement and attached to this order.
2. The Mitigation Monitoring and Reporting Plan, included as Appendix L of the final Environmental Impact Statement and attached to this order, is adopted.
3. Southern California Edison Company's prepared testimony is admitted into the evidentiary record as Exhibit 2, Energy Division's June 7, 2011, memo to the Administrative Law Judge and attached response to protests is admitted into the evidentiary record as Exhibit 3, and the final Environmental Impact Statement for the Desert Sunlight Solar Farm project is admitted into the evidentiary record as Exhibit 4.
4. No evidentiary hearings are necessary.
5. Application 10-11-012 is closed.
This order is effective today.
Dated July 14, 2011, at San Francisco, California.
MICHAEL R. PEEVEY
President
TIMOTHY ALAN SIMON
MICHEL PETER FLORIO
CATHERINE J.K. SANDOVAL
MARK J. FERRON
Commissioners