A powerful champion of a power line

But the project would mar sweeping vistas of mountains, desert and scenic roads on 90,000 of Anza-Borrego's 600,000 acres, spoil the solitude of campgrounds with loud buzzing and jeopardize species such as the endangered bighorn sheep, according to parks officials and a draft state and federal environmental review completed in January. That report found five preferable alternatives, including a route south of the park along Interstate 8 through the Cleveland National Forest.

"The idea that we're going to sacrifice critical pieces of our environment to protect other pieces of our environment seems a little ironic," said Elizabeth Goldstein, president of the nonprofit California Parks Foundation. "That's an irony I cannot accept. We have to find a way to do both."

Schwarzenegger, in turn, called environmentalists and Democrats hypocrites for trying to block clean-energy projects.

"It's a kind of schizophrenic behavior," the Republican governor said recently at a Yale University conference on climate change. "They say that we want renewable energy, but we don't want you to put it anywhere."

He cited opposition to SDG&E's plan for "150 miles of transmission lines" -- the precise distance of the company's proposed route through Anza-Borrego. The alternative southern route is 40 miles shorter.

The governor's parks director, Ruth Coleman, objects to SDG&E's plans and told Grueneich in February that she prefers a route that avoids the park. But in deference to Schwarzenegger, she has remained otherwise silent on the matter in recent months -- as she eventually did on the toll road plan -- since issuing a blistering statement to the Public Utilities Commission in 2006.

Coleman, who declined an interview request, wrote then that the power line "would forever change the character of this pristine park and wilderness area."

Some environmentalists question how much renewable energy the line would carry, because production is still scant in the Imperial Valley. Development is uncertain, they say, and the utility could use the line to import electricity from Sempra's natural gas-fired plants in Mexico and Arizona.

The Public Utilities Commission is expected to reach a decision on whether the line should be built, and where, by late summer. "I believe very strongly that the public needs to have confidence this process has been fair," said Grueneich, who has arranged public hearings in Borrego Springs, near the park, on May 12.