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Visit our new section on Prop 16: The PG&E Power Grab

Senate Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg wrote PG&E CEO Peter Darbee: Assembly Bill 117 (Migden) was enacted (Chapter 858, Statutes of 2002) with broad support, including the support of your company. This legislation prohibits utility company interference with [Community Choice Aggregation (CCA)] and requires utilities to "cooperate fully with any community choice aggregators that investigate, pursue, or implement community choice aggregation programs.” PG&E is aware that many communities are currently examining CCA. Your efforts to erect roadblocks to communities' pursuit of CCA can be interpreted as a violation of the statute. [Emphasis added]

The Clean Power Healthy Community conference was a smashing success thanks to our speakers, volunteers, and participants. Over 175 people participated over the two days and five working groups were created.  We will be posting the videos and slide decks shortly. Stay tuned...

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

Visit the Conference page  

SUNDAY, MARCH 7, 2010

I wrote the following "guest editorial" for the March 5 edition of the subscription newsletter, California Energy Circuit. Their deadline requirements prevented me from including the following statement which Peter Darbee made in response to a question at the March 1, 2010 PG&E investors conference in New York:
"There's going to be some flap. It will take place between now and June. And then the voters will have their ability to make their case one way or another. And then, presumably, you know, we'll mend any broken fences after that.”

By John Geesman

Friday, March 5, 2010
Silicon Valley / San Jose Business Journal - by David Goll

Officials in Silicon Valley cities with public power utilities are nervously eyeing a state proposition they say could stunt their ability to grow and generate sufficient revenue.

Proposition 16 on the June 8 ballot would amend the state Constitution to require local governments to obtain two-thirds voter approval to provide electricity to new customers or expand service. Pacific Gas & Electric Co. has pledged major financial backing for the measure.

[Below is Loretta Lynch's excellent description of how PG&E uses ratepayers' money to fund Prop 16, its efforts to squelch CCAs and public power, and its other political powergrabs and shenanigans. Loretta was Chair of California's Public Utilities Commission a decade ago, has been teaching at University of California at Berkeley, and is the author of a forthcoming book on energy politics in California. ~ Ed Mainland]

Richard Halstead
Posted: 03/04/2010 04:20:01 PM PST

The former president of a coalition that has sent five mailers to Marin residents slamming the Marin Clean Energy initiative says he no longer has anything to do with the group, and actually supports efforts such as Marin Clean Energy.
The Coalition for Reliable and Affordable Electricity's 2008 tax returns - the most recent available to the public - list Dan Richard, Pacific Gas and Electric Co.'s former senior vice president for public policy and government relations, as the coalition's president.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 03, 2010

David Niebauer

A new, innovative feed-in tariff for small-scale solar development is coming to California. Rather than setting a fixed price in an environment in which technology costs appear to be dropping, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) has proposed a market-based approach, allowing developers to bid the lowest prices at which they would be willing to develop projects. This approach focuses on adding capacity to meet California’s aggressive renewable portfolio standard (RPS), and appears to avoid the pitfall of setting a price that is too high or too low. Time will tell if the approach is effective, but the outline of the program released by the CPUC looks promising.