Environmental Leader

California’s Truckee Donner Public Utility District board of directors has rejected a proposed 50-year deal to buy wholesale-priced power from a proposed coal-fired power plant in Utah after dozens of ratepayers and renewable energy advocates testified that Truckee should not be supporting an energy-generating system that contributes to global warming, the Reno Gazette-Journal reports.

The move forces the 12,000-customer utility to purchase power on the open market at prices utility staff members say will be twice what the Utah power would have cost them. Much of the open-market power is likely to also come from coal-fired power plants. Customer rates are likely to rise by 30 percent.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California both wrote letters urging the board to reject the Utah project.

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