It's been fought here — and won
This is not the first time a destructive project has threatened this corridor. Each of these was met — and stopped, rerouted, or denied. The records are public; the playbook still works.
- Precedent
It Was Denied Here Before: The Valley-Rainbow Powerline
The last time SDG&E tried to run a 500 kV line through this same Temecula–Rainbow corridor, the state didn't reroute it — it denied the project outright, because SDG&E couldn't prove the line was needed.
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A 500 kV Line in Our Own Backyard That Never Got Built: LEAPS
A 500 kV line through the Cleveland National Forest — linking the same two utility systems, right next to Temecula — was pushed for nearly two decades and never cleared review. It was dismissed at both FERC and the CPUC.
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Denied Because the Host Got Nothing: Devers–Palo Verde 2
A 500 kV line that mostly served California was denied by Arizona's regulator — because it gave the communities it crossed no real benefit while they bore the impact. It is the clearest mirror of Temecula's case.
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A Coalition Made the Utility Walk Away: Green Path North
No court, no formal denial — just a broad desert coalition that made LADWP's 500 kV import line so unworkable the utility withdrew it. A line through communities for Los Angeles's benefit, beaten by the people it would cross.
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They've Beaten Sempra Here Recently: Line 3602
In 2018 the CPUC denied a $639 million Sempra project — because the company couldn't prove it was needed. It was a gas pipeline, not a power line, but it is the same parent company, the same Commission, and the same “we don't need this” argument.
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It's Been Rejected Before: The Sunrise Powerlink
The last time SDG&E tried to run a 500 kV line through Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, regulators called every route through the park “environmentally unacceptable and infeasible” — and forced the line off the park.
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Even After the Towers Went Up: Chino Hills
Edison had already built roughly 200-foot 500 kV towers over Chino Hills backyards — and a small city and its residents still forced the state to tear them down and bury the line. It isn't a clean win, but it proves approval is not the end of the fight.
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We've Won Here Before: Stopping the Liberty Quarry
Between 2008 and 2012, the City of Temecula and the Pechanga Band defeated a massive open-pit mine proposed on the same Riverside–San Diego county border this powerline would cross. The coalition, and the playbook, are still here.
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