California Propositions 7 and 10 mislead voters with words like “renewable energy” and “alternative fuel”.
I like to think of myself as an informed voter. I always read the California General Election Official Voter Information Guide, but I am a sucker for anything with “renewable energy” or “alternative fuel” in the title (or childrens’ hospitals and farm animals). When I first read about Propositions 7 and 10, I thought they sounded like good ballot initiatives. Who wouldn’t want all utilities to be required to provide 50% renewable energy by 2025? It was only after I discovered leading environmental groups opposed these propositions that I began to question these statutes.
Proposition 7: Renewable Energy Generation Initiative Statute
- Requires utilities, including government-owned utilities, to generate 20% of their power from renewable energy by 2010, a standard currently applicable only to private electrical corporations.
- Raises requirement for utilities to 40% by 2020 and 50% by 2025.
- Imposes penalties, subject to waiver, for noncompliance.
- Transfers some jurisdiction of regulatory matters from Public Utilities Commission to Energy Commission.
- Fast-tracks approval for new renewable energy plants.
- Requires utilities to sign longer contracts (20 year minimum) to procure renewable energy.
- Creates account to purchase rights-of-way and facilities for the transmission of renewable energy.
The California Public Utilities Commission, the Sierra Club, and the Union of Concerned Scientists are amongst many groups that have come out against Proposition 7. The Sierra Club calls this ballot initiative:
A poorly drafted, poorly vetted measure that actually weakens California’s existing renewable power laws and could stall the growth of renewable power in our state. The goals contained within this measure are ambitious, but the proposition lacks the necessary provisions to achieve its target.
The Union of Concerned Scientists warns, “that it could actually hinder the development of new clean, renewable energy sources in California, like solar and wind power.” This proposition actually decreases the environmental review of proposed power plants. What will voters actually do when reading the summary of this ballot initiative on renewable energy? Will they know it will force consumers to pay 10% above the market rate of power, or that it was put on the ballot by an out-of-state billionaire? I fear the title and summary will sway voters into thinking this is a good proposition for our environment.
Proposition 10: Alternative Fuel Vehicles and Renewable Energy Initative Statute
- Provides $3.425 billion to help consumers and others purchase certain high fuel economy or alternative fuel vehicles, including natural gas vehicles, and to fund research into alternative fuel technology.
- Provides $1.25 billion for research, development and production of renewable energy technology, primarily solar energy with additional funding for other forms of renewable energy; incentives for purchasing solar and renewable energy technology.
- Provides grants to cities for renewable energy projects and to colleges for training in renewable and energy efficiency technologies.
- Total funding provided is $5 billion from general obligation bonds.
This is another California ballot initiative that looks good on paper; we do need to develop alternative fuel vehicles. The truth behind this proposition is that it is special interest legislation. According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, Prop 10 would give “nearly ten billion taxpayer dollars into a program promoting natural gas and other transportation fuels that could achieve little or no reductions in smog or global warming pollution.” The Sierra Club reveals that, “The primary proponent and funder of the initiative is Clean Energy Fuels Corp“, the largest provider of natural gas for transportation in North America. This proposition does not require any clean air improvement. Even State Treasurer Bill Lockyer and State Controller John Chiang oppose this ballot initiative:
In our judgment as California’s chief financial officers, Proposition 10 is harmful to California’s financial health. Every major conservation group agrees that Proposition 10 is misguided environmental policy. But Proposition 10 is worse than that. Proposition 10 is an unwise effort to put our state government five billion dollars further in debt.
Prop 10 is an attempt to make a market for natural gas vehicles in the state of California, while leaving truly green car technologies behind.
With so many misleading ballot initiatives, voters must rely on organizations they trust to help them decipher the rhetoric. When groups such as the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), California League of Conservation Voters (CLCV), Environment California, Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) and the Sierra Club oppose propositions using the words “renewable energy” in their titles, it makes me think someone is trying to pull the wool over voters’ eyes. These propoitions appear to promise good things, but in actuality they would “accomplish little to facilitate real, sound alternative energy or technologies“.
There’s a blogger whose made strong criticism regarding the ethics and judgment of the elite enviros who’ve been criticizing Prop 7.
http://www.confusedinsolarcalifornia.blogspot.com/
As mentioned there, NRDC played an active role in designing and defending California’s electricity restructuring — we saw how well that worked out. Other major enviro opponents of 7 may not have had a direct hand in that fiasco but nonetheless allowed that disaster to take place in their back yard, deferring to EDF and NRDC’s “expertise”. As the anonynmous blogger by the handle of SolarCaliGirl notes, many of these groups are conflicted in terms of funding from and relationships with utility interests.
The future of the planet may require carrying out a close examination of the mainstream enviros and pondering whether they should be entrusted to continue in their role as arbiters of enviromental policy.
Unfortunately, the mainstream media and most of the blog community seems to be ignoring these issues.
Regards,
bernardo (at) NonprofitWatch dot org
This distresses me so much to read the untruths regarding Prop. 76 that have become the stuff of “urban legends”, since they go from person to person, without a careful reading of Prop. 7!
It is absolutely not true, for example, that Prop. 7 reduces the opportunity for environmental review. For the large systems (above 30MW), which require significant investment capital, the carrot of a six-month reduced “fast track” is offered, but only after a preliminary three-month environmental review to determine if there are no significant environmental problems. If that preliminary review shows that there might be, the review process reverts to the present one of 12-18 months. So Prop. 7 doesn’t take away any environmental review opportunity, but adds an important possible carrot to attract the investment for the creation of tens of billions of dollars of new renewable energy industries and an estimated 370,000 new jobs.
Similarly, the statement that “it will force consumers to pay 10% above the market rate of power” is also patently untrue, and not even part of Prop. 7. What Prop. 7 does is to tell the utilities that, as they address their 2% renewable energy portfolio additions each year to their generation portfolios, they must in good faith be offered renewable energy contracts that cost no more than 10% above the base cost, which is measured off of the cost of natural gas. That means that by 2025, if all the new renewable energy contracts cost 10% more (which is ridiculous, since wind is already cheaper, not more expensive), then 30% of the utilities’ generation portfolios would have cost 10% more, adding only 3.3% to the cost to ratepayers. But since the bills for ratepayers are about evenly divided between generation and infrastructure costs, the actual hit on ratepayers by 2025 will be an increase of about 1.7%! That very small increase will have long been buried by the very large increases in the cost of natural gas between now and 2025.
And finally, the “Arizona Billionaire”, John Sperling, was a long-time and innovative Professor of education at San Jose State University. He is a Californian through and through, which is why he is using his money to try and support the betterment of California’s economy and environment. He now lives in Arizona for his wife’s health, but that move does not change where his allegiances lie. And his son, Peter Sperling, lives in Santa Barbara.
So you see how distorted the opposition has become? Even the accusation that Prop. 7 will rule out the small installers (less than 30MW) has been shown to be wrong, most recently from an independent analysis by Attorney Steve Weissman of the UC Berkeley Center for Environmentl Law and Policy, who concluded “there are very convincing arguments to suggest the proponents intended to embrace renewable-energy facilities of all sizes…”.
What a pity to have Prop. 7 shot downs by all of these untruths and misreadings! California can indeed meet the goals of Prop. 7, and in so doing can lead the nation and the world toward a more rapid response to the greatly accelerating impacts and concerns of global warming and climate change, while giving California the lead also in the new lucrative energy industries for this century. Isn’t it our responsibility to take advantage of this amazing opportunity?
Donald W. Aitken, Ph.D. Oct. 23 2008