A San Diego congressman, Rep. Bob Filner (D-CA), said Wednesday that he has written the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission asking for a rehearing of the commission’s earlier decision to approve the North Baja natural gas pipeline. Filner said new electric generation plants that the pipe is designed to serve on the Mexican side of the international border will substantially increase air pollution.

The congressman, a vocal critic of the merchant generators during the recent electricity and natural gas wholesale price/supply crises in his area, wrote FERC Jan. 25 asking for late intervention. Residents of both San Diego and Imperial Counties in the southern end of California running along the international border “have expressed deep concern at the air pollution that would be created by the [two power] plants,” Filner said in a news announcement Wednesday.

FERC on Jan. 16 okayed the plans of affiliates of Sempra and PG&E Corp.’s National Energy Group to build an 80-mile U.S. segment of the 215-mile North Baja interstate natural gas pipeline from the California-Arizona border near Blythe south to the Mexican state of North Baja, CA, and then westerly along the border to existing power plants south of Tijuana. It will serve two new power plants at Mexicali in North Baja, CA, one of which is being developed by another Sempra subsidiary.

In his letter to FERC, Filner said the power plants served by the pipeline are what is at issue. A rehearing, he wrote to FERC, should review what he called the “huge air pollution impacts” of the power plants. He called the federal energy department environmental assessment “incomplete,” and asked for a “full-blown environmental impact statement or mitigation measures” to deal with both air pollution and endangered species issues.

“The bottom line is that the plant supplied by the pipeline has not been designed to fully meet California air emission standards,” Filner told the FERC in his letter.

“No citizen should have to choke and gasp their way through our state’s power crisis,” Filner said in his press statement. “The big energy companies have already bilked California out of billions of dollars. Now they are trying to ruin our clean air, too.”

Filner said in his news announcement that the FERC letter was just another step in what he called “our fight against these polluting smokestacks,” noting he is ready to lead protests to Sacramento to reinforce the opposition. The State Lands Commission meets later this week to determine if the project should be delayed or scrapped. Filner said he wants the FERC rehearing “as soon as possible.”

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