[3] In the mid- and late 1970s, plans envisioned as future United States energy policy by the Carter Administration called for hundreds of new nuclear plants to be built nationwide.

[4] In 1976, after purchasing the necessary parcel of land the previous year, San Diego Gas & Electric Company submitted an application to the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission to construct two 974 MWe Westinghouse pressurized water reactors approximately 15 miles southwest of Blythe, California near the border of Arizona.

[5][6] The location of the proposed nuclear plant was 160 miles east of the city of San Diego, and the site had been cleared for general and earthquake safety by both state and federal regulators.

[9] The next month, April 1978, a year before the Three Mile Island accident, Governor Brown stated he would never sign a bill allowing construction of a nuclear power plant in California.

Soon afterwards the California Energy Commission voted to halt the construction of the two Sundesert units in the "absence of federally demonstrated and approved technology for permanent disposal of radioactive wastes".