We're sorry to report that the "Clean Power, Healthy Communities" conference is now sold to capacity, but you can still see our inspiring keynote presenters, plenary speakers, performers, and more by signing up for our live conference webcast!

REGISTER NOW for only $10 by clicking on the "Buy Now" button.

By Tuesday afternoon, we'll send you the exclusive webcast link, along with the full-color 4-page program (in PDF format) to follow all the goings-on. Thanks for your interest and commitment to building a local clean energy-powered Bay Area!

Join clean energy advocates, public officials and clean energy entrepreneurs for two days of strategy discussions on the following topics:

* Climate Action Plans 
* Power Plants & Public Health 
* Green Collar Job Creation 
* Community Choice Energy 
* Policy & Financing 
* Creating a Local Power Grid 

Download agenda

Confirmed Speakers include: Bill Gallegos, Communities for a Better Environment; Charles McGlashan, Marin County Supervisor; Mark Toney, TURN; Randy Hayes, World Future Council; Bill Powers, P.E., Powers Consulting; Ian Kim and Emily Kirsch, Ella Baker Center for Human Rights; Ezra Rapport, ABAG; Calla Ostrander, City of San Francisco Department of Environment; Timothy Burroughs, City of Berkeley; Mark Jacobson, PhD, Stanford University; Bruce Riordan, Climate Bay Area; Torm Nompraseurt, Asia Pacific Environmental Network; John O’Connor, Operations Manager, Sun Light & Power; Joshua Arce, Brightline Defense Project; Rory Cox, Pacific Environment; Rosa Gonzalez, HeadRush crew; Adam Browning, Vote Solar; Tara Marchant, Greenlining Institute; Damien Gossett, Alameda County; Renata Brillinger, Climate Protection Campaign; Bradley Angel, Greenaction;
Simon Bryce, Renewable Funding; Jailan Adly, Rising Sun Energy Center; Larry Chang, Sightworks Design; Michele McGeoy, Solar Richmond; Dave Room (emcee), Local Clean Energy Alliance

For more information about the conference, contact Rory Cox at rcox@pacificenvironment.org.

With the fate of the Marin Clean Energy initiative hanging in the balance, Marin County supervisors voted 3-2 on Tuesday to serve as one of the co-signers on a loan that will supply the venture with critical start-up capital.

More than 200 people turned out for the public hearing at the Civic Center and more than 30 people were allowed to make one-minute comments.

By Peter Jamison in Breaking News, Business, Environment, Government, PoliticsMon., Jan. 11 2010 @ 6:30PM

City Attorney Dennis Herrera is asking state energy regulators to shut PG&E up when it comes to a controversial overhaul of San Francisco's power system that proponents say would provide greener electricity.

​In a petition filed today with the California Public Utilities Commission, Herrera asks for a sweeping prohibition on any communications from the company directed at its San Francisco customers on the subject of the city's plan, called CleanPowerSF. "There's a difference between First Amendment rights and using your market monopoly for an anti-competitive end," said Matt Dorsey, Herrera's spokesman.

By: Mike Aldax
Examiner Staff Writer
01/11/10 4:45 PM PST
City Attorney Dennis Herrera has accused Pacific Gas & Electric Co. of targeting San Franciscans in a campaign to protect its monopoly.
Herrera today “petitioned the California Public Utilities for tougher regulations to prohibit electric utilities from engaging in marketing campaigns and other abuses of their monopoly position to undermine Community Choice Aggregation, a program intended to enable local governments to develop cleaner, renewable energy sources and ultimately stabilize consumers’ electricity costs.”

PG&E pushes its attack on clean power past some powerful opponents
BY REBECCA BOWE
Wednesday January 13, 2010

rebeccab@sfbg.com
GREEN CITY Pacific Gas & Electric Co. has spent some $5 million on a campaign for a ballot initiative that would hinder the creation of locally operated community choice aggregation (CCA) programs like Clean Power SF.
But the powerful utility picked a fight with some high-ranking officials in the process, and in recent weeks, the utility took a few lumps. With the initiative expected to qualify for the June ballot in the next several weeks, a battle of grand proportions is brewing between the utility giant and supporters of CCA programs, which can rapidly increase the number of clean-energy sources.
The first blow came in late December when California State Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, Sen. Mark Leno, and six other senators sent a strongly worded letter to Peter Darbee, CEO of PG&E. The proposed initiative, called the "New Two-Thirds Vote Requirement for Local Electricity Providers," would change California's Constitution to require two-thirds of a community's voters to approve new CCAs. If passed, it could halt momentum toward greener, community-driven power programs that would challenge PG&E's monopoly.

January 11th, 2010

Digital News Report – SAN FRANCISCO – City Attorney Dennis Herrera today petitioned the California Public Utilities Commission for tougher regulations to prohibit electric utilities from engaging in marketing campaigns and other abuses of their monopoly position to undermine Community Choice Aggregation, a program intended to enable local governments to develop cleaner, renewable energy sources and ultimately stabilize consumers’ electricity costs. The move comes in reaction to efforts by Pacific Gas & Electric Company to kill consumer choice, contrary to promises it made to state regulators to support CCA, the consumer energy alternative made possible by state legislation in 2002.

Local Supply is the Name of the Game

By Chris Nelder
Friday, January 15th, 2010

Last week, I speculated on how Southern California and Arizona might fare in a relocalized future where small regions are forced to become self-sufficient.

This week, we’ll draw some insights from communities that have gone local.

Jefferson, the Almost-49th State

Following two previous, unsuccessful rebellions in 1852 and 1854, residents of the area from roughly Mt. Shasta in Northern California to just above Coos Bay in Oregon made a serious attempt to secede from the states in 1935, out of frustration over the lack of state support for their critical transportation infrastructure needs.

A Time magazine article from 1938 lauded the area’s “rich deposits of chrome, copper, gold, iron, coal, limestone and platinum beneath an evergreen blanket of several billion feet of virgin timber,” which remained largely inaccessible for a lack of good roads and rail.

By DEBRA KAHN of Greenwire
Published: January 7, 2010
SAN FRANCISCO -- Efforts by California municipalities to end-run electric utilities for greener electricity and lower rates have yet to succeed and might soon face longer odds if investor-owned power companies have their way.

PRESS RELEASE CONTACT: Eric Wooten
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 916-849-2237
January 12, 2010

PG&E Initiative Qualifies:
TURN, Sierra Club and Local Power Inc. Join to Defend Consumer Choice & Oppose PG&E Locking-in High Rates and Dirty Power

Pacific Gas & Electric’s (PG&E) newly qualified ballot initiative will lock-in high rates by killing honest competition from outside energy providers. California law allows communities to purchase power on the open market. PG&E wants to stop local communities from exercising their constitutional right to cleaner and cheaper alternatives. The signature verification process has just been completed and the measure will appear on the June 8, 2010 California ballot. The Constitutional Amendment required 763,790 valid signatures in order to qualify by random sample. On January 12, the California Secretary of State confirmed they had 787,071. To date, PG&E is the sole financier, investing more than $3 million thus far. They want us to wear Green Goggles.