California is experiencing a wave of power plant construction unlike it has ever seen before. If all plants now in the pipeline are constructed – and most of them are going forward quickly – the state's electricity-generating capacity will increase by roughly one-third by the end of 2003.The rush comes after 10 years of no private power plant construction. Many, but by no means all, of the new power plants have received approval under expedited review processes urged by the Legislature and Governor Davis. State officials say they are doing their best to review environmental impacts of the plants and to give affected communities chances to participate in project reviews. However, some critics say the process has become skewed toward producing more megawatts. Environmentalists and some local officials complain that they have had little time to react to some projects. Of greatest concern are plants intended to produce electricity only during times of peak demand. An executive order signed by Davis in March gave the California Energy Commission only 21 days to review emergency "peaker" plants that operators promised to have on-line by September 30. As of mid-June, the commission had permitted 10 peaker plants capable of generating 827 megawatts under the executive order, according to the governor's office. "My biggest concern," said Sandra Spelliscy, general counsel for the Planning and Conservation League, "is that we have really taken the California Environmental Quality Act out of the process of siting these power plants." For the 21-day process, the governor suspended CEQA and gave state analysts 7 days to complete an environmental review. Esther Feldman, president of Community Conservancy International, which is spearheading a proposed park in Los Angeles's Baldwin Hills, said the 21-day review process for a peaker plant in the planned park made public involvement difficult. "The process is untenable. There essentially is no process," Feldman said. "When you're talking 21 days, it's a ram-through. The deal has been done. It's just a formality." Feldman, former chair of the Los Angeles County Regional Planning Commission, appeared to win her battle when the applicant for the Baldwin Hills project withdrew. But, she said, the process should have included local oversight and extensive public outreach. Instead, "the dates on the public hearings changed five times." In June, the City of Chula Vista found out how quickly the process can move. Ramco, Inc., which had received city approval for a 49-megawatt power plant from the city last year, filed an application for a 62-megawatt peaker plant in mid-May. State officials conducted a hearing in the southern San Diego County city, but the public and city officials struggled to make themselves heard. In a letter to the Energy Commission, the city complained that the state had taken exclusive authority, "as if the local jurisdiction's comments do not matter." After receiving the six-page letter from the city outlining concerns, as well as last-minute comments from the San Diego Air Pollution Control District, the Commission did postpone its final decision on the Ramco project – by two days. Energy Commission spokeswoman Mary Ann Costmagna said officials did conduct an informational hearing in San Diego and a site tour that was open to the public. The state sent out media advisories and provided an electronic list-serve for individuals and the press, she said. "Every effort has been made to keep it an inclusive process," Costmagna said. Multiple tracks Last year, the Legislature passed AB 970, which established a four-month review process for "peaker" plants. However, because of a short window in which the plants had to come on line and because of various data problems with applications, the state approved only one peaker plant under this system, according to Chris Tooker, siting policy program manager for the Energy Commission. In addition to the four-month process for peakers, AB 970 also required the Energy Commission to develop a six-month process for proposed power plants that met a number of criteria, including full compliance with federal and state air quality standards and evidence that there would be no unmitigated environmental impacts. The commission has since adopted regulations for the six-month review. Since February, Davis has issued four executive orders regarding power plant licensing. He extended the four-month review process for plants that can be on-line by next summer, and he ordered the 21-day, CEQA-exempt process for plants that can be on-line by September 30. Also, the Legislature approved SB 28X (Sher) that extended the four-month review process for certain projects through 2003. Thus, the commission now has four different review processes, depending on project size, timing and environmental factors: A 21-day process for peakers that can be on-line by September 30; a four-month process for peakers that can be running fairly quickly; a six-month process for larger, long-term power plants; and the normal 12-month process. All of the expedited processes (less than 12 months) expire at the end of 2003. Several of the biggest and most controversial projects, including the 600-megawatt Metcalf Energy Center in south San Jose, and a 1,000-megawatt expansion of the Moss Landing facility near Watsonville, are proceeding under the normal year-long review process. The 21-day process is available only to projects on sites that were pre-screened by the Energy Commission, Tooker explained. The sites must have infrastructure in place, and there can be no known environmental issues, he said. "We have not ignored environmental concerns, we just have been exempted from following the normal timelines in the environmental review process," Tooker said. "It's not like there is not public involvement. It's just curtailed because you are cutting out review time." For the 4-, 6-, and 12-month processes, the Energy Commission is still following its normal environmental review process, which is the equivalent of CEQA, Tooker said. The expedited processes have fewer public workshops than the normal 12-month process, but the public still has at least four opportunities to provide input, he said. Most cities limit their participation to comments on the draft environmental impact report, he said. Tooker expects some of the streamlining to remain in place even after the 2003 sunset date. The Warren-Alquist Act allows the state to override local zoning for power plants, However, only twice in the commission's nearly 27-year history has it overridden local zoning, and one time it was requested by the county, Tooker said. None of the recently approved projects has been incompatible with local zoning. And, Tooker added, "In most of the cases, the commission has licensed with all of the impacts mitigated." Doubts exist Michael Boyd, president of Californians for Renewable Energy, questioned whether emissions from the new power plants will be as clean as they could be. The state is allowing peaker plants to operate for months before they comply with clean air regulations, and some major plants are relying on questionable "offsets," he charged. Furthermore, many of the plants are being approved in poor communities, raising environmental justice issues. "The governor is letting the companies who are gouging us get away with murder," Boyd said. The Chula Vista peaker approved in mid-June provides something of a case in point for environmentalists. The Energy Commission license allows Ramco to emit five times as much NOx (nitrogen oxide, the chief pollutant from power plants) from the time the plant comes on line until June 30, 2002. Moreover, the plant is planned in an area that already has one power plant and more siting proposals. City officials contend the state does not know what the cumulative impacts will be because there has been no time for analysis. Michael Lake, chief of the engineering division for the San Diego Air Pollution Control District, said, in fact, his agency has analyzed cumulative impacts for the Chula Vista and Otay Mesa area. The agency found no concerns. However, if there is a natural gas shortage — a distinct possibility for the area — those plants would burn oil, which might be a concern. The agency is studying that scenario, he said. Lake said the expedited processes have proven frustrating, although the plants proposed for his district are all gas-fired with efficient turbines — far cleaner than oil-powered plants of the past. He said the quick process has caused some agency coordination and communication problems, and has led to projects receiving little review by the public. Lake added, "Because these projects are moving so quickly, the project developers themselves are making changes — such as changing the height of a stack — and some of those changes affect our air quality modeling." Some people question the rush for emergency peakers that are not required to be on-line until September 30 — after the hottest season has passed. Spelliscy, of the PCL, said that some peaker plants are receiving licenses for combination-cycle plants, even though they are really the dirtier single-cycle turbines. The idea is that the plants will be converted to the combination cycle plants later. In the meantime, the local air district will issue abatement notices. "It's a huge shell game, playing fast and loose with the federal Clean Air Act," Spelliscy charged. "It's just being done outside the normal processes and being done so quickly that no one can get a hold of it." Furthermore, she complained, SB 28X allows power plant developers to file applications without offsets in hand. (All large power plants need air quality offsets, which are often gained by retrofitting an existing manufacturing facility elsewhere.) An additional concern of some people is that the plants being approved as emergency peakers or under less-than-strict scrutiny will not go away when their permits expire in 2003. There will probably be enormous political pressure to extend these power plants' lifespans, Spelliscy said. Feldman, of Community Conservancy International, agreed with that concern. "There has not been a power plant in California that has been taken down yet," she said. "It's impossible to write a permit condition that can require one of these to be taken down. You can only lawyer it so far." Certainly there is enormous political pressure right now to build electricity generating facilities, and Gov. Davis is making no apologies for the construction boom. In April, the governor appointed Richard Sklar, a former president of San Francisco construction management company O'Brien-Kreitzberg, to work with power plant developers. And the governor emphasizes that no environmental standards are being compromised. Despite the governor's build-it-now approach and environmentalists' feeling of unease, adequate public pressure can kill – or at least stall — a proposed power plant. In late June, La Jolla Energy Development Inc. announced it was withdrawing its application for a 53-megawatt power plant on a former oil field in the Baldwin Hills. A politically powerful coalition, including Feldman, has formed behind the idea of creating a 1,200-acre park in the Baldwin Hills, and the state last December allocated $41 million to buy 68 acres in the area – reportedly the largest state grant ever for the purchase of urban parkland. Park supporters said the power plant would conflict with the park and, pointing to the mostly poor neighborhoods in the immediate area, they raised environmental justice concerns. "We listened to the community," La Jolla President Steve Wilburn told the Los Angeles Times. "We need to find another place for this equipment." Still, Stocker Resources, the oil company that controls much of the land proposed for a park, indicated it might pursue a power plant anyway. Contacts: Chris Tooker, California Energy Commission, (916) 653-1634. Michael Lake, San Diego Air Pollution Control District, (858) 650-4700. Sandra Spelliscy, Planning and Conservation League, (916) 444-8726. Esther Feldman, Community Conservancy International, (310) 475-0797. Michael Boyd, Californians for Renewable Energy, (408) 325-4690. Energy Commission website: www.energy.ca.gov