Dear CalMatters reader,

California Assemblymember Buffy Wicks is feeling a time crunch in California’s quest to combat climate change. So she’s trying to speed up renewable energy source construction and storage.

“We do have to make it faster and better,”  Wicks said recently. “Government has to work better for people.”

Wicks, an Oakland Democrat, was speaking about a Legislative subcommittee field hearing on permitting reform that she held to discuss streamlining renewable energy permits last month. It was part of a statewide tour of different cities to explore permitting solutions for issues including energy, housing and climate change.

The first stop in the Coachella Valley hearing was the Desert Peak battery storage project in Palm Springs, by NextEra Energy Resources.

It’s silhouetted against the San Bernardino Mountains, surrounded by a field of wind turbines and next to a Southern California Edison substation. The battery storage center draws power from the Palo Verde nuclear generating station in Arizona and renewable energy projects in the desert, said Pedro Villegas, executive director for political and regulatory affairs for NextEra.

Rows of sheds house hundreds of lithium-ion batteries that store power and then feed it into the grid. At full capacity Desert Peak will produce 700 megawatts, enough to power about 140,000 homes. 

Facilities like this are key to California’s ambitious climate goals. The state aims to reach net carbon zero — the point at which the amount of greenhouse gasses that humans emit equals the amount removed from the atmosphere — by 2045. In 2022 the California Air Resources Board released a plan to get there.

To do that, California has to cut red tape, Wicks said. Industry experts at the hearing said there has to be less duplication of paperwork, increased staffing at regulatory agencies and better coordination between them.

But wind and solar farms can displace valuable ecosystems and farmland, while battery storage sites pose fire risks.  So the state is facing pushback from rural communities that are ground zero for renewable energy development.

Five years ago San Bernardino County restricted new, large-scale wind and solar projects on more than a million acres of rural land in certain communities after residents complained that the projects threatened fragile natural environments and historical sites.

“We need to be mindful of creating sacrifice zones in pursuing climate solutions,” Nataly Escobedo Garcia, a policy coordinator for the Fresno-based Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability, told the subcommittee.

Converting traditional farms to solar farms also sparks opposition, Villegas said. 

“Especially in rural areas, some folks have a reaction to turning agricultural lands to solar energy,” he said. 

Battery storage has gotten bad press lately, with several high profile fires in San Diego County. 

An Escondido battery storage facility caught fire in September, prompting evacuations and closures of nearby schools. In May a blaze at a battery storage site in Otay Mesa burned for two and a half weeks, sparking worry about the safety of the high-powered batteries. In September 2023, a Valley Center energy storage facility caught fire. 

Energy experts said the industry has improved its fire safety protocols since those were built.

“The facility in Escondido was installed in 2017,” said Scott Murtishaw, executive director of the California Energy Storage Alliance. “That’s ancient technology.” 

Despite advances in newer and potentially safer energy technology, lawmakers say efforts to wean off fossil fuels aren’t moving fast enough to avert the effects of climate change.

“There’s a huge chasm between the things we say are our priorities and what we are actually delivering in the state” in renewable energy and climate action, said Assemblymember Cottie Petrie-Norris, a Democrat from Irvine. “The number one thing we need to do to accelerate the pace is permit reform.”

A police officer lost control of his motorcycle and crashed into a crowd at the Palm Springs Festival of Lights Saturday, injuring 10 people including a child, the Desert Sun reported. The injured people were treated at local hospitals with non life-threatening injuries. Palm Springs Police Chief Andy Mills apologized for the accident on Facebook and said California Highway Patrol will investigate the incident. In a later message he said the department would cancel all motorcycle operations until the investigation is complete. 

Donald Trump’s October 12 campaign rally in the Coachella Valley made news after a heavily armed man was arrested at the site. Now it’s getting press because it’s unclear who will pay the event’s more than $300,000 in security costs. The Desert Sun reports that it’s unclear if the Trump campaign or the county will foot the bill for the 300 law enforcement officials who worked it, many on overtime. Generally political campaigns pay for security at events. Riverside County Supervisor V. Manuel Perez, who represents the Coachella Valley, said he wants to make sure Trump pays up, but Riverside County Sheriff’s Department hasn’t said if it has billed the campaign. 

A man died after San Bernardino County Sheriff’s arrested him for suspected trespassing at a Hesperia park Saturday, the Riverside Press-Enterprise reported. Deputies detained the 42-year-old man after park rangers called for help, saying the man acted erratically and wouldn’t leave. He stopped breathing while in custody, and deputies tried to resuscitate him before taking him to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead. The Inland Empire has disproportionate rates of deaths in custody, with 216 deaths in San Bernardino County and 226 deaths in Riverside County from 2011 through 2022, according to a recent report by the criminal justice nonprofit Care First California.

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