California takes the first step in reforming the state’s renewable portfolio standards law.
On Tuesday March 3, 2009, the Senate’s Energy, Utilities and Communications Committee passed Senate Bill 14 by Senator Joe Simitian. If enacted, SB 14 would increase the required amount of renewable energy sources in California’s portfolio to 33 percent by 2020 and make other necessary reforms to our state’s renewable portfolio standard (RPS) law.
Current law requires the state to obtain 20 percent of its electricity from renewables by 2010. However, the California Public Utilities Commission reports that in 2007 only 12 percent of the state’s electricity came from renewable resources such as geothermal, solar and wind. The Commission and other interested parties agree that the state’s three investor owned utilities – PG&E, Southern California Edison and SDG&E – will not meet the 2010 deadline and won’t be in compliance with the law until 2013.
Sierra Club California believes that the RPS law needs to upgrade both the targets and the rules under which it operates. Other states have adopted RPS laws and made significant strides in building renewable energy. In 2007 Texas reached a total installed wind capacity of over 5000 megawatts. In that same year California only built about 60 megawatts of wind turbines, a dismal performance. California once led the world in renewable energy and we need to regain our leadership.
Sierra Club California supports many of the proposed reforms to the RPS law under SB 14, including: the adoption of an enforceable minimum 33% RPS for both investor-owned utilities and publicly owned utilities; improvements to the market price structure and program goals for renewables; and implementation of more democratic accountability at the Public Utilities Commission. This is one of our top bills of the year and will be following it closely as it proceeds through the California Legislature.
SB 14 was voted out of the committee with the bare minimum of 6 aye votes. Committee members voting for SB 14, were Senators Padilla, Corbett, Kehoe, Lowenthal, Simitian and Wiggens. Voting against the bill or not voting were Senators Benoit, Calderon, Cox, Strickland, and Wright. It was disappointing to see Senator Strickland voting against the bill since he is one of the bill’s co-authors and had campaigned in last November’s election as a promoter of clean renewable energy. The bill now moves to the Senate Appropriations committee.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Renewable Energy bill moves forward
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Getting Clean Power Plugged In
Right now is our best chance to give California’s clean-energy future a solid foundation. That’s why our state’s renewable portfolio standard should be at least 33 percent by 2020.
We can make that standard even stronger by requiring that newly generated power come from truly clean sources. It just makes sense to consider the potential impacts of building new dams and hydroelectric facilities, or of converting waste into energy. These proposals have a price tag that will be paid not only by ratepayers, but by California’s wild rivers and clean air.
Now is also a great time to start thinking about an enforcement strategy for bringing California into the clean-energy future. As Senator Simitian mentioned while defending the bill, California’s Public Utilities Commission never has issued a single penalty for utilities that fail to meet state standards for new renewable power. Not one.
That’s why it’s a good time to hold those commissioners to a higher standard as well, with regard to conflict-of-interest. We can’t continue the revolving-door policy that encourages the regulated to become the regulators.
Sierra Club California pledges to continue working with Sen. Simitian and the committee to improve SB 14 and to bring cleaner energy to all Californians. Read Sierra Club California's full letter to the committee.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Feed In Tariffs – The Right Idea, Right Now
Sierra Club California just submitted a letter urging California’s energy officials to embrace “feed-in tariffs” in a big way.
Feed-in tariffs are incentive structures used to encourage generation of renewable energy by compensating for price differences between renewable power and fossil fuel electricity. As applied in Germany, this system sets a fair price for renewable power, encouraging widespread generation and use.
Not only would feed-in tariffs encourage cleaner power production, they also represent a good way for the state to take on climate change. Sierra Club California has urged the California Air Resources Board to consider this powerful economic tool as it considers the Climate Change Scoping Plan today and tomorrow.
But for now, the state has proposed a limited version of feed-in tariffs, limiting them to smaller plants (less than 20 megawatts in size). We are telling the air board and the energy commission to raise that limit, and to give feed in tariffs more power to increase the amount of renewable energy generated in the state.
We’re also working with lawmakers to generate measures that would encourage California to embrace this powerful new philosophy – and that encourage the state to raise its clean power production goal to 33% by 2020.
Read Sierra Club California’s Dec 10 comments to the California Energy Commission
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Stronger Renewable Energy Goals For California
Yesterday, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed an executive order calling on the state to streamline its renewable energy process, ideally making it easier to produce and sell renewable power. He also is expected to sign a memorandum of understanding among resources-protection agencies, prompting more sustainable siting of clean-energy plants.
The governor’s action comes at a critical time for the state of California. Most experts agree that clean energy will provide new “green jobs” to lift the Golden State’s economy, while reducing the pollution that causes global warming. Still, groups and individuals who want to protect our state’s wilderness resources worry that these same facilities could hurt animals, plants and wilderness areas in their path.
“Everyone agrees that generating more renewable power will energize our economy and reduce pollution, but we can’t ignore the impacts to wilderness in our quest to generate more clean energy in California,” said Jim Metropulos, Senior Advocate, Sierra Club California. “Sierra Club California hopes that involving agencies like the Department of Fish and Game and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that protect these resources will lead to a better understanding of how we can build a clean-energy future that doesn’t hurt our precious ecosystem in the process.”
Sierra Club California has long called on lawmakers and the Schwarzenegger Administration to increase the standard to at least 33 percent by 2020. This summer, the California Air Resources Board joined that call, asserting that raising the standard would reduce the pollution that causes global warming.
Simply raising the required amount of renewable power generated by utilities won’t accomplish everything, Metropulos said. Sierra Club California urges additional reforms to ensure the continued success of a renewable energy program.
First, our state currently ties the price of clean energy to its future projected price of natural gas, known as the market price referent, which the state consistently underestimates. This forces would-be clean energy projects to compete against an artificially low fossil-fuel-based standard – an archaic, unsustainable practice that California must reverse.
In designing a new approach to renewable energy, the Schwarzenegger Administration and the California Legislature would do well to look to programs that already work. In Germany, a program known as “feed-in tariffs” sets up fixed prices for renewable energy, rewarding investors leery of our “boom or bust” system. Meanwhile, throughout California, communities are scrambling to get into “community choice aggregation,” pooling their buying power to get more bang for the buck.
As they move to expand renewable power generation in the state, state lawmakers and regulators always must keep in mind whether renewable sources of energy are equally sustainable in terms of environmental impacts or energy supply. For example, outdated methods of drawing on geothermal energy involve essentially poking holes in the ground and allowing the underground steam to escape into the atmosphere. This process releases both greenhouses gases as well as toxic materials.
“California has the power to retake the lead in developing new sources of clean, renewable power, as long as Gov. Schwarzenegger and the Legislature fix flaws in current renewable power standard law,” said Metropulos. “Adopting a truly sustainable standard that protects wild places while fully empowering clean-energy projects represents the best pathway to a clean-energy future.”
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
No On Proposition 7
Sierra Club and its environmental allies have joined together to oppose Proposition 7, a costly renewable energy scheme that actually will make it harder to build clean power in our state.
Proposition 7:
1. Contains serious, inherent flaws that could get in the way of achieving its goal of 50% renewable fuels by 2025.
2. Actually works against Sierra Club-backed energy policies that would allow communities to choose the source of their energy.
3. Decreases environmental review of proposed power plants.
Watch the ad above to learn more, or click here to read our position on Proposition 7.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Propositions 7, 10: No Good Alternative
Sierra Club California stands firmly behind the idea that clean, renewable energy and alternative vehicles can create jobs and help our economy while fighting the pollution that causes global warming.
That's why we only very reluctantly opposed Propositions 7 and 10.
Proposition 7 contains loopholes for compliance and lacks a steady source of funding for renewable power development. Instead of creating a funding stream that clean-power generators could tap into, the measure creates an uncertain system of penalties that may or may not provide enough money to fund new renewable sources of energy. The proposition even lowers some current penalties for non-compliance. Proposition 7 also sets a dangerous precedent by removing local control over energy policy. Sierra Club’s energy experts know there’s a lot of potential in “community choice,” a practice that consolidates a community’s energy-purchasing power in the same way co-op grocers have more power to buy produce because they work together.
Along similar lines, Proposition 10 also provides no good alternative. Although its supporters claim the proposition promotes energy independence and clean air, the measure would offer taxpayer money in the form of rebates to consumers who purchase vehicles that create “no net material increase in air pollution.” That sets the bar too low to reduce the pollution that causes global warming and that affects the health of Californians living near freeways and high-traffic areas. Taxpayers would subsidize the purchase of these vehicles via expensive borrowing, since Proposition 10 doesn’t offer a way to pay back the general fund for these rebates. Instead, it relies on future state tax collection to pay back these bonds. Sierra Club questions the use of state-issued bond funds for rebates to the purchasers of cars that would do little to combat global warming.
photo courtesy Department of Water Resources
Friday, August 22, 2008
Let's Energize The Debate!
That’s what our allies at Environment California announced today at the State Capitol. We’re joining them in their call for the California Legislature to power up its efforts to pass a renewable portfolio standards bill that would call for a full third of California’s power to come from renewable sources by the year 2020.
Currently, utilities must generate at least 20% of their electricity from renewable resources such as solar, geothermal and wind power by 2010. Last month, Sierra Club California wrote Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, asking him to work toward a 33% standard.
Schwarzenegger has joined the team of allies trying to hurdle California’s renewable generation capacity toward 33%. Speaking for him, California Energy Commissioner Karen Douglas joined a panel that also included representatives of the Center for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Technologies; the Union of Concerned Scientists; Environmental Defense Fund and a score of environmental, public health and environmental justice groups.
Raisng the bar for renewables would pay off across a number of issue areas, the groups agree.
"Increasing the renewable portfolio standard would lower greenhouse gas emissions, clean our air and create an estimated 200,000 new jobs for Californians," says Jim Metropulos, Sierra Club California's Senior Advocate.
A 33% renewable portfolio standard should be a top priority for the Legislature, the group agreed.
“If developing renewable energy were an Olympic sport, California surprisingly wouldn’t even win a bronze medal,” said Bernadette Del Chiaro, clean energy advocate for Environment California. “It is high time California gets back in the race by upping our mandate and commitment to removing barriers to renewable energy.”
PHOTO: CEERT's V. John White answers a reporter's question as representatives from Environment California, Sierra Club California and other groups back him.
Friday, July 11, 2008
Another Bush Administration Global Warming Delay?
As California takes on global warming by setting real targets for pollution reduction, the Bush administration continues to drag its feet.
David Bookbinder, Sierra Club's Chief Climate Counsel and the attorney who's defending California's Clean Car Law, had this to say about the Bush administration's latest delay in addressing global warming:
"Today's action caps off eight years of catastrophic negligence on the part
of an increasingly irrelevant administration, and removes whatever shadow of a
doubt that may have existed about whether it was going to fail to live up to its
obligations to the American public, the law, and the Supreme Court to do
something real on global warming.
"The American public, Congress, world leaders, and even career government
officials are counting down the days until this administration leaves town and a
new president undoes the damage done by President Bush and makes up for nearly a decade of lost time — time we didn't have to waste in the first place. And the
first thing the next administration will do is toss the Advanced Notice of
Proposed Rulemaking into the circular file.
"Stephen Johnson should have left his post long ago, but today's action underscores his complete and utter lack of credibility. Johnson will be remembered not for his decades of public service, but rather for his unswerving fealty to the misguided policies of a failed administration.
"This global warming melodrama has all the set pieces of classic Bush administration political theater: politics coming before science, outright deception of the American public and Congressional investigators, willful disregard for the law and courts, and political meddling at the highest levels to protect favored special interests--with the dark hand of the Vice President visible throughout. Thankfully this drama is near the end of its final act."
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Ending The Oil Addiction
Sierra Club California Director Bill Magavern just debated Republican Congressman Dan Lungren over offshore oil drilling.
One of Bill's best points:
"We can't address our smoking problem by looking for new sources of tobacco, and we can't address our oil addiction by drilling off our beautiful coasts. Instead, we need to use less oil, and to find alternatives to oil. That will bring the price down, and, more importantly, wean us off our addiction to oil."More reasons NOT to drill for oil off California's coasts:
• Drilling our coasts would do nothing to reduce gas prices for the average American family. Opening offshore areas to drilling would only lower gas prices by less than 3-4 cents a gallon, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council.
• Drilling isn't a good, quick fix. It would take at least a decade to bring new leases issued under this plan into production.
• Oil companies are not even using 5,500 offshore leases they already own.
• The honest answer to our oil problem is to use less of it, and that means better, faster fuel economy standards and a shift toward renewable energy. Renewable sources of energy remain a promising path away from our oil dependency, both Bill Magavern and Dan Lungren agreed during their ABC News debate.
Find out more about the "Outer Continental Shelf," the area that would be affected by drilling.
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