Feds OK 1st-Ever Calif. Solar Plants On Public Land

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS/AP) — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger helped unveil a historic approval from the federal government for the construction of two solar installations on public lands in Southern California.

U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Gov. Schwarzenegger announced the projects Tuesday. One includes a square mile of solar panels near Victorville, and the other covers about 10 square miles in the remote Imperial Valley.

The announcement comes about five years after solar developers began asking the U.S. Bureau of Land Management for the rights to develop hundreds of solar plants on federally owned desert land across the Southwest.

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