Flashback: Sen. Reid Breaks Ground for Nevada Solar Farm Near Bundy Ranch

The senator’s plan for solar farms in Nevada wasn’t just limited to the shelved project near Laughlin

(From RIGHT to left) Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) joins Moapa Band of Paiutes Chairwoman Aletha Tom, First Solar CEO James Hughes, LADWP director of power system planning and development Randy Howard, and the Moapa Band of Paiutes Tribal Council to break ground on the 250 MW Moapa Southern Paiute Solar Project. (Photo: Business Wire)

Kit Daniels
Infowars.com

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who was exposed last Friday as the mastermind behind the Bureau of Land Management’s persecution of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, can be seen in this March 2014 photo breaking ground for a new solar farm near the Bundy Ranch, emphasizing that the senator’s plan for solar projects in Nevada wasn’t just limited to the shelved solar farm near Laughlin.

Signaling the first day of construction of the Moapa Southern Paiute Solar Project, which is about 35 miles from the Bundy homestead in Bunkerville, Nevada, Sen. Reid joined representatives from the Moapa Band of Paiutes, executives from First Solar, Inc. and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power for the groundbreaking ceremony on March 21.

“First Solar is thrilled to celebrate this important milestone with Sen. Reid and distinguished guests, and honored to work with the Moapa Band of Paiutes on this landmark project,” Jim Hughes, the CEO of First Solar, said at the time.

The development of solar farms just like this one is exactly why Sen. Reid was using the BLM, whose director is Reid’s former senior advisor, to push Bundy out of the Gold Butte area his family has worked for over 140 years.

As we revealed last Friday in an article that became the #1 news story in the world for 24 hours, the BLM specifically stated that it wanted Bundy and his cattle out of the area as part of the agency’s “regional mitigation strategy for the Dry Lake Solar Energy Zone.”

The BLM attempted a cover-up by deleting documents exposing the plan from its web site, but fortunately contributors at the Free Republic were able to save them for posterity.

Others have attempted to whitewash the situation by suggesting that the solar farm development was only limited to the shelved 2012 deal between Sen. Reid and Chinese-owned ENN Energy Group in Laughlin, Nev., but by reading the BLM’s own documents it is quite obvious that this is not the case.

“The BLM’s current action builds on the Western Solar Energy Plan, a two-year planning effort conducted on behalf of the Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of Energy to expand domestic energy production and spur development of solar energy on public lands in six western states,” the BLM announced in a March 14 press release. “The Western Solar Energy Plan provides a blueprint for utility-scale solar energy permitting in Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah by establishing Solar Energy Zones with access to existing or planned transmission, incentives for development within those Solar Energy Zones, and a process through which to consider additional Solar Energy Zones and solar projects.”

“The Regional Mitigation Strategy for the Dry Lake Solar Energy Zone is the first of several pilot plans to be developed by the BLM,” the press release added.

In summary, the BLM, acting under Sen. Reid’s corrupt interests, wants Cliven Bundy out of the 600,000 acre Gold Butte area so the agency can use the land for future solar projects and de facto buffer zones surrounding the solar farms.

This is crony capitalism at its finest and Bundy’s supporters, who numbered in the thousands, knew it.