It Was Denied Here Before: The Valley-Rainbow Powerline

In 2001, SDG&E asked the California Public Utilities Commission to build the Valley-Rainbow Interconnect — a ~$271 million, ~31-mile, 500 kV line from Edison's Valley Substation near Romoland to a new Rainbow substation, crossing southwest Riverside County. One proposed route ran straight through the heart of the Pechanga's Great Oak Ranch. ^{[1] [2]}

In December 2002, the Commission denied it. Decision D.02-12-066 refused SDG&E the Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity every utility must hold before building a line this size. This was not a reroute, as later happened with Sunrise — the project was stopped. ^[3]

The reason cuts to the center of today's fight. The CPUC asked whether SDG&E had shown the line was actually needed within a reasonable planning horizon — and found it had not, siding with the state's ratepayer advocates and the local community over both SDG&E and the California grid operator (the ISO). ^[3]

That matters now. SDG&E says Golden Pacific is justified because the grid operator identified a need. Valley-Rainbow is proof the operator's word is not the last word: the Commission can — and did — weigh the need itself and say no. It added a second, independent reason: the line wasn't cost-effective, with most of its benefits coming from new power plants, not the wire. Either finding alone was enough to deny it. ^[3]

Valley-Rainbow wasn't beaten by public comment alone. It was beaten on the evidentiary record, by formal parties who took SDG&E's case apart with expert testimony. That same playbook is available today. ^{[3] [4]}

Become a party, not just a commenter. Save Southwest Riverside County and the state's ratepayer advocates intervened formally — filing testimony, cross-examining SDG&E's witnesses, briefing the law. That standing shaped the outcome, and the Commission later awarded the community group its costs. A city can seek the same status once SDG&E files. ^[4]

Win it on the numbers. The denial turned on load forecasts, power supplies, and cost-benefit math — not scenery. The “need” collapsed once intervenors showed SDG&E had left available resources out of its forecast. ^[3]

Insist every alternative is studied. The Commission faulted SDG&E for looking “only at transmission alternatives.” Generation, storage, demand response, and upgrading existing lines must be weighed before any new corridor is approved. ^[3]

Don't treat the grid operator's word as final. The Commission reached the opposite conclusion from the ISO. Regulators can say no even when the operator says yes — and here, they did. ^[3]

The denial didn't happen on its own. Save Southwest Riverside County became a formal party and put the need question on the record — the Commission later compensated it for the difference it made. ^[4] The Pechanga Band, whose Great Oak Ranch and ~2,000-year-old sacred oak Wi'áaşal sat in one proposed path, fought the line and moved to protect the land. ^{[5] [6]}

Read it honestly: it was the 2002 decision on need that stopped the project — the tribal land went into federal trust afterward, in 2003. No single move was decisive. An organized community, a tribe with land in the path, and ratepayer advocates together built a record the regulator could not approve. ^{[3] [5]}

The headline is simple, and it belongs to this community: the state has already denied an SDG&E 500 kV line in this exact corridor — because the company couldn't prove it was needed. We are not asking regulators to do something unprecedented. We are asking them to do what they have already done here once before. Golden Pacific can be met the way Valley-Rainbow was met: demand the review test the real need and the alternatives, and put that case on the record. Neighbors who came before us stood on this same ground and won. So can we.