You Paid Hundreds of Millions for Solar Power to Wreck the Environment

Your tax dollars will subsidize a solar company cutting down thousands of protected and rare Joshua trees and destroying habitat for the endangered desert tortoise to make way for a massive energy project in California.

The 2,300-acre Aratina Solar Project west of Barstow is intended to generate 530 megawatts of electricity. But it has infuriated residents with construction dust and a likely threat to centuries-old trees and endangered desert tortoises that are the official state reptile of California and Nevada, the usual environmental safeguards so prevalent in California notwithstanding.