Thanks to opposition from Green America and our members joining with local and national allies, two industrial-sized biomass plants proposed for California were defeated in late June 2025. The two plants, that would have been run by the international wood pellet company Drax, would have destroyed up to 1.3 million acres of forests, polluted communities and exacerbated climate change while doing nothing to mitigate wildfires. The wood pellets would have been burned overseas to generate electricity that was marketed as renewable.
Facing immense community opposition and financial uncertainty, Golden State Natural Resources (GSNR), the entity trying to get the plants approved, canceled their plans. This is a historic victory for forests, the climate, and the residents of California.
A coalition of grassroots, national, and international groups used public engagement, earned media, and social media to fight the plans to build destructive wood pellet plants in the central Sierras in Tuolumne County and in Northern California in Lassen County, as well as a a storage and export terminal in Stockton, California. These plants would have threatened important forest ecosystems and polluted local communities.
While this is a major victory, we are not completely out of the woods yet. GSNR is considering large-scale wood chip production which could still irrevocably harm California forests, communities, and climate, and could increase air pollution, particularly around sensitive communities. But for now, it’s a victory for the planet and communities.
