Hundreds of residents from the High Desert attended the Bureau of Land Management's Coolwater-Lugo Transmission Project meeting held on Tuesday, September 16, 2014, at the Hilton Garden Inn in Victorville, California.

    The meeting was co-hosted by Southern California Edison (SCE) and was an informational meeting to answer citizens' questions regarding the highly controversial power transmission project.

    The BLM often relented to SCE's experts to respond to many questions.  Some well prepared audience members caught the SCE representatives in contradictions of statements made earlier in the permitting process and contradictory statements from other state authorities.

    The two hours provided for the introduction and Q&A proved inadequate as many in the audience who had signed-up to ask questions were not given the opportunity due to time limitations.  The highly energized audience requested that the meeting be extend beyond the 8 P.M. scheduled closing, which probably could have been easily accomplished; but the highly battered BLM and SCE chose not to continue.

    The audience cries for the continuance to have all of their questions answered were so strong that civility almost broke down.  However, two Sheriff deputies in the back of the room were not seen reaching for their tasers.

    The crux of the overall outcome is that many High Desert residents are highly opposed to the Coolwater-Lugo transmission proposal and have lost respect and confidence in both Southern California Edison and the BLM.  SCE has failed to demonstrate that a true current necessity exist for the project.

    The cost of the transmission line is expected to add approximately $110-million per year onto SCE ratepayers' billing.  It was stated that SCE receives just over 10-percent for its services.

    SCE's logic behind the transmission line appears to be to build the transmission line and alternative producers will later appear.  However, many earlier producers have gone by the wayside; and SCE is gambling with ratepayers' money that there might be producers in the future.  The audience felt that SCE would have scrapped the proposal if it was funded by its stockholders.

    A BLM representative stated that the BLM controlled lands in California belong to the American people.  That is a statement that is becoming more recognized by the public as untrue.  When California became a state, all lands within its soverign border, legally belonged to California.  The federal government under the U.S. Constitution does not have the legal right to claim the land that it administers under the BLM.

    Thanks to corrupt past Congresses, western American states were established by East Coast Congresses that illegally claimed control of lands for its personal power and control.  As previously written in past blogs, some states (like Utah) and several dozen western counties are calling for the federal relinquishment of its illegal land claims within the western half of the U.S.

    As the federal goverment does not have the Constitutional authority to govern the BLM controlled lands in California, the wrong entity is sitting at the table; it should legally be the State of California.