SPEAKING OUT:

Leading Environmentalists & Clean Power Experts Say the Risky Energy Proposition is “Fatally Flawed” and Will Take Us Backward.

Riverside Press-Enterprise, Editorial, September 12, 2008

No on 7

The last time California implemented an energy proposal as complex and incomprehensible as Prop. 7 was the 1996 electricity deregulation scheme that triggered an energy crisis. The grim ghost of mistakes past offers a clear warning to voters about blindly approving poorly understood changes to the state's energy system.

Voters in November should defeat Prop. 7, whose main provision would set higher targets for the use of renewable energy in California. Current law calls for the state's large private power companies to get 20 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2010. Prop. 7 would require 40 percent renewable power by 2020 and 50 percent by 2025. And the measure would extend those requirements to municipal utilities as well as private companies, unlike current law.
But that bare sketch fails to capture the sheer scope of Prop. 7. The measure would make a series of arcane policy changes, and voters will have no way to judge whether such provisions make sense. And the state's legislative analyst says that judging the effect on electricity rates is impossible.

Prop. 7, for example, would shift some electricity oversight duties from the Public Utilities Commission to the state's Energy Commission. The ramifications of that change are far from clear, except for one: The legislative analyst notes that the measure fails to delete those duties from the PUC's authority, creating the potential for conflicts and duplication.

The measure also would change the limits on how much utilities have to pay for renewable energy, which is frequently more expensive than traditional power. Prop. 7 would set the new cap at 10 percent above the market price of electricity. Consumers would pay that extra cost. But no one knows just how much that might be, because the Energy Commission would have broad leeway in setting the market price. And the cap would not even apply to publicly owned utilities, such as Riverside's, which could thus face enormous costs.

Prop. 7 does say that consumers will see no more than a 3 percent increase in electricity rates, yet provides no way to enforce that declaration.

The measure purports to fast-track approvals of new renewable energy projects by shortening the approval timelines. But that change would not apply to projects that would cause significant harm to the environment or the power grid, or otherwise not comply with legal requirements. That language leaves the door wide open for the environmental and other legal challenges that often stall new transmission lines and renewable energy projects.

The PUC reported in July that the state's private utilities would not be able to hit the 20 percent renewable energy goal by 2010, mainly because of the expiration of federal tax credits for alternative energy and the lack of transmission lines. Prop. 7 would increase the targets, without removing the obstacles, and with utterly unpredictable results.

Blind gambling on energy policy is foolish. Voters should reject Prop. 7.


<< back <<

FACT:
Forces small wind and solar companies out of the market.