A massive NV Energy transmission line project set to transect some of the state’s most pristine undeveloped land is being challenged in a lawsuit filed Wednesday by two Nevada conservation groups.

Friends of Nevada Wilderness and Basin and Range Watch filed the lawsuit Wednesday in federal U.S. District Court, arguing decisions by Bureau of Land Management (BLM), the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Park Service authorizing portions of Greenlink West “violated federal law, were arbitrary and capricious, and were an abuse of the agencies’ discretion.”  

The lawsuit asks the court to order the agencies to halt construction until they are in compliance with federal laws and administrative procedures, including the National Environmental Policy and the Endangered Species acts.

NV Energy declined to comment on the litigation. 

The lawsuit marks the first time in its 40-year history that Friends of Nevada Wilderness has filed a lawsuit — a decision the group did not make lightly, said Executive Director Shaaron Netherton.

“We felt we had no options here,” Netherton said in an interview. “We felt the intact landscapes, the botany, the wildlife, deserved a champion. And we’re it.”

Greenlink West is a 472-mile-long overhead power line, with a series of connected substations, slated to span between Las Vegas and Yerington and come online in 2027. The BLM issued its final approval in the fall, and surveying for the project has begun. The project’s cost has substantially increased since its inception and is now estimated at well over $4 billion. NV Energy has said the project — which includes another transmission line linking Reno to Ely — is necessary to meet future energy demands and help the state accomplish renewable energy goals.

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It will run through a portion of Esmeralda County that Friends of Nevada Wilderness describes as one of the most intact natural landscapes left in Nevada and, in 2023, sought unsuccessfully to have designated an area of critical environmental concern by the BLM.

Multiple utility-scale solar projects have been proposed in Esmeralda County since the approval of the transmission line, with the BLM expected to soon issue the final environmental impact statement (EIS). If built out, the projects, dubbed the “Esmeralda 7,” are expected to have a 62,000-acre footprint, roughly the size of Las Vegas. The BLM failed to analyze the effects of those additional solar projects on the landscape, the suit alleges.

“The fact that the final EIS completely ignored the future impacts of a proposed industrial solar field complex the size of Las Vegas is simply a dereliction of duty,” said Netherton. 

Greenlink West is also slated to run through a corner of Southern Nevada’s Tule Springs Fossil Beds National Monument, site of one of the largest Pleistocene vertebrate fossil assemblages in the southern Great Basin and Mojave deserts. Congress established the park in 2014.

Greenlink West would destroy fossils that are protected under the National Park Service Organic Act of 2016, according to Basin and Range Watch co-founder Kevin Emmerich, who spent two decades serving as a National Park Service employee.

The project also crosses through Nature Conservancy land. 

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Officials: Error led to routing planned transmission line through national monument

The lawsuit comes on the heels of the BLM’s Tuesday release of the final analysis for the proposed Greenlink North transmission project, the companion infrastructure piece to Greenlink West.

If completed, Greenlink North and West will tie in with the existing One Nevada Transmission Line, which is partially owned by NV Energy, creating a continuous triangle loop of high-voltage transmission lines across the state. 

Greenlink North would span 235 miles from Ely’s Robinson Substation to the Fort Churchill Substation near Yerington.

If the northern project is approved, NV Energy would construct a new system of high-voltage transmission lines and facilities paralleling most of U.S. Highway 50 for the majority of its length across land overseen by the Department of Defense, Forest Service and private landowners. Greenlink North, which will transect some of the state’s most intact sage-grouse habitat, has also drawn intense scrutiny from conservation groups including the Center for Biological Diversity and the Sierra Club, which have advocated for the project to be rerouted along Interstate 80 to the north. 

“Plowing a giant energy transmission line through ‘the loneliest road in America’ (Highway 50) will propel numerous imperiled species like the iconic greater sage grouse toward extinction,” said Megan Ortiz, staff attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Re-routing the project along Nevada’s existing transmission lines would ensure that our state’s wild places remain wild.”

Public review of the northern project runs through June 23, with a final record of decision expected later this year. 

Editor's note: This story was updated at 5:30 p.m. 5/28/25 to reflect NV Energy declined to comment on the lawsuit.