I am proud to do some work opposing Prop 7, but I’ll get into more details about that later.

Ballot propositions are big business here in California. I’m pretty sure this is not what Hiram Johnson had in mind with this whole initiative process, but you could write a whole other book about that.  With all these initiatives, we end with a lot of work for some election lawyers.  Like we saw with the Prop 8 folks who are suing AG Jerry Brown over the hate amendment’s title,  the Yes on 7 folks didn’t like some of the ballot arguments from the No side.

Long story short, one of the arguments against Prop 7 is that some language in the text of the proposition could lead to an impossible economic situation for small (<30 MegaWatts) renewable providers.  The Yes folks wanted to boot that from the ballot arguments, because, well, they they just didn’t want you hearing about that messy drafting stuff.  Well, sometimes the truth hurts, as a Sacramento superior court has allowed the language to stay. More over the flip.

The thing is that usually when you create business for an industry, you get support for your proposition. Not this one, with small providers running scared from Prop 7‘s threat of a disaster for small providers:

“After carefully reviewing the facts and both side’s extensive legal filings, the judge upheld our argument that Proposition 7 contains language that could devastate small renewable energy providers in California and force them out of the market,” said Sue Kateley, Executive Director of the California Solar Energy Industries Association, the largest solar industry association in California with more than 200 member companies. “Prop. 7 would exclude renewable power facilities smaller than 30 megawatts from counting toward the measure’s new requirements. This would likely drive California’s small solar, wind and renewable power providers out of business, eliminating a major source of clean energy and thousands of jobs.”

More word on the other ballot argument litigation soon. As this stuff goes to the printers soon, we should wrap it up by next week.  More on Prop 7 soon as well.

CALIFORNIA TAKES ANOTHER GIANT LEAP ON GLOBAL WARMING POLICY

AIR BOARD RELEASES COMPREHENSIVE PLAN TO CUT POLLUTION

SACRAMENTO (June 26, 2008) – The California Air Resources Board (CARB) released the nation’s most comprehensive plan to date for reducing the pollution that causes global warming.  While the plan is still a proposal, it represents the furthest step forward any state has taken in the fight against global warming, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS).

Patricia Monahan, the director of UCS’s California office, said CARB’s plan would add more momentum to the fight against global warming. “California is showing the rest of the country how we can build a clean energy economy,” she said. “There’s no drilling our way out of energy problems.  As energy prices skyrocket, consumers need real alternatives that sip rather than guzzle, and that are homegrown instead of imported.”

The 75+ page plan includes a range of policy recommendations.  Chief among them is increasing the state’s renewable electricity standard.  The plan also contains provisions for a regional cap-and-trade program that could work in harmony with other more specific policies to reduce pollution economywide.  The plan also says CARB will consider a vehicle “feebate” program that would provide incentives to consumers to buy cleaner cars.

In addition, the proposal includes plans to reduce emissions from heavy-duty trucks with hybrid engine technology and better fuel economy.  Like many of CARB’s proposals, the heavy-duty truck provisions would improve public health by also reducing smog-forming pollution.  The plan also advocates for a high-speed train system in California.  

Christopher Busch, a UCS climate economist, pointed out that many of the draft plan’s policies would save consumers money and yield economic benefits, while the overall cost of implementing the plan would likely be negligible. “Fundamentally, we’re talking about making our economy more efficient, which will give us energy savings,” he said. “And investing in clean, renewable energy will make our electricity and fuel supplies more diverse, and insulate us from price swings in the fossil fuel market.”

Busch added that global warming pollution reduction strategies also would provide public health benefits by cleaning up the air as well as support the state’s growing clean technology industries. “California has proven time and again that we can clean our air and grow our economy,” he said. “Now the state is going to prove the same thing with global warming.”

The renewable electricity standard in the plan would require utilities to generate 33 percent of their electricity from clean, renewable sources, such as wind and solar power, by 2020.  Such a standard would reduce global warming pollution by an amount equivalent to avoiding the construction of 10 new large fossil fuel power plants or removing nearly 3 million cars from the road. And such a standard could save residents money on their electricity bills by displacing natural gas.  Additionally, it would reduce smog-forming pollution, create new green-collar jobs in the state, and bolster California’s growing clean technology sector.

“California has a wealth of renewable electricity potential we aren’t tapping into yet,” said Dan Kalb, UCS’s California policy coordinator. “Shifting to clean, safe sources of carbon-free electricity in a smart and well-planned manner is a win for the environment, the economy and consumers.”

more…

(For more about the benefits of boosting the state’s renewable electricity standard, go to: www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/clean_energy/33_percent_RES.pdf )

CARB also identified a feebate program as one avenue for reducing vehicle pollution. S uch a program would establish one-time rebates and surcharges on new passenger cars and light trucks based on the amount of global warming pollution they emit.  This program would deliver benefits on its own, but also would complement California’s tailpipe standards if both were implemented.  According to a University of Michigan study, implementing a clean car discount program would deliver an additional 21 percent reduction in global warming pollution beyond the tailpipe standards.

More than 1.5 million new vehicles are sold in California each year, which represents about 10 percent of the new vehicle market in the United States. A quarter of California’s global warming pollution comes from cars.

“A feebate program is a great way to make cleaner cars more affordable for everyone,” said Spencer Quong, a UCS senior vehicles engineer. “Cleaner cars simply cost less to operate, so people will save money on gas with this program, too.  On top of that, this ‘clean car discount’ program would give automakers an added incentive to produce cleaner vehicles.”

The regional cap-and-trade market approach in CARB’s plan would work best IF California can strengthen the Western Climate Initiative (WCI) efforts, according to UCS.  The WCI is a partnership among several western states and Canadian provinces to reduce global warming pollution.

“CARB’s plan on cap-and-trade is a step in the right direction and draws on some lessons learned from other cap-and-trade systems,” said Busch.  “But until the details are filled in, the jury remains out on whether or not the program will be as well designed as it could be.”  UCS is VERY pleased to see that cap and trade accounts for only 20 percent of the needed emissions reductions, while the remaining 80 percent will come from direct regulations. “The plan  appropriately recognizes that cap and trade is not a silver bullet,” Bush said.

Busch cautioned that CARB’s plan implies that the agency is considering auctioning less than half of the pollution allowances under a cap-and-trade system initially.  He pointed out that cap-and-trade systems work best when as many pollution allowances as possible are auctioned and that giving them away can create unwarrented windfall profits for polluters. (On page 19 of the plan, CARB calls for the program to “quickly transition … to a system in which the majority of allowances are auctioned.”)

CARB also recommends limiting the number of “offsets,” or substitutes polluters could use to avoid making pollution reductions on their own.  But until those offset limits are specified, Busch said, it will not be possible to determine how effective a cap-and-trade program would be at reducing pollution, fostering innovation, creating jobs, or improving public health in California.  Ideally, in-state offsets would be emphasized more than out-of-state offsets.  UCS urges CARB to prohibit the use of offsets for compliance with direct regulations such as the renewable energy standard.

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Blogged yesterday on DesertBlog about the Sunrise Powerlink hearings in San Diego, and the viral videos about Sunrise Powerlink that are spreading across the Internet. SDG&E and its Chamber of Commerce minions are spamming the Internet to keep their astroturf support group’s website high in Google rankings.

Fortunately, there are three videos out there that tell the truth about the Sunrise Powerlink, and you can help spread their message. You can help boost one of the video’s search results simply by viewing it and you can also boost its ranking, along with several other anti-Powerlink sites, by voting for them on hugg.com, the green social bookmarking site of Treehugger.com.

Let’s get viral, people!

Thanks to Dave Roberts at Gristmill I learned today that there is an operating distributed power plant in Germany that could allow that country to go to 100% renewable energy by 2050.  The study / pilot project came out of the University of Kassel.  

The easiest way to understand what they are doing is to watch this short (7.24 min) film.

If you go back through all of the candidates energy plans and the talk in the ABC New Hampshire Debaste, all of them, Democratic or Republican, you have to conclude that they all have no faith in our industry; no faith in our technology; no faith in America.

Now, I find out that there is going to be Presidential Energy Summit with those same candidates held in Houston, TX on February 28th. Well, maybe a few will drop out by then.. Richardson???

Who sponsors this summit?  Shell Oil, Independent Petroleum Producers Association (lobby).  

What great energy plan will we see here?  Not much, I would bet.  The moderator will be Tim Russert and it will be broadcast on MSNBC.  Someone needs to get to Russert and make sure that he puts some pressure on all of them.

We have to recognize the relationship between global warming and “global warring”. Just as dependence on foreign oil has led to wars in the Middle East, allocating an outrageous amount of our budget to the Pentagon facilitates and preserves this dependence on foreign oil. Dennis Kucinich understands this connection and so, as stated above, will slash the Pentagon budget by 15% as his first step to move away from fossil fuels and towards sustainable and renewable fuels and energy sources. As stated above, this money will go to education, as well as creating his Works Green Administration (WGA). The WGA will couple the EPA with NASA to develop new technologies to utilize alternative fuels and energies.

Inspired by FDR’s Works Progress Administration, the WGA utilizes the Environmental Protection Agency to put millions of Americans back to work rebuilding our schools, bridges, roads, ports, water systems, and environmental systems. Not only does the bold practicality of the plan lie in putting Americans back to work by investing in the national wealth of our own infrastructure, but the plan also incorporates environmental and energy concerns to further create wealth for the country and save individual families more money. For example, not only will the public works projects stress green building and renewable energy technology, but the plan will enable homes to be retrofit with green building, solar and wind microtechnology which will save families money on their energy bills. The WGA rebuilding effort will incorporate sustainable development and renewable energy from our public infrastructure to the millions of private homes that choose to retrofit with wind and solar technologies to save on family energy costs. In fact, they will be able to sell energy back to the grid.

The role of utilities will change dramatically because it will no longer be a centralized approach toward energy production. Utility companies will have to provide support for green alternatives. They will no longer be dictating energy costs, as Kucinich will work to break up the monopolies and ensure close regulation of their activities. They will be required to go green as license conditions and shut down if they violate the Clean Air Act. We will finally have a strict and EPA.

Further, Kucinich will finally committ the U.S. to the provisions of the Kyoto Protocol, as well as incorporating a carbon tax to create disincentives for using carbon-based energies. However, he believes this isn’t enough; simply punishing those people who are using carbons is not the answer. Rather, Kucinich wants to put the emphasis first on the government supporting renewable technologies, to move the country toward a renewable portfolio standard of at least 30% by 2020.

Kucinich will create a cooperative and synergistic relationship between all departments and administrations within the government for the purpose of greening America. Whether it’s the Small Business Administration, or the Housing and Urban Development Department, or the Department of Agriculture, or the Department of Labor, each would incorporate green goals into its policies.

Internationally, as President, Kucinich will work with the leaders of China and India and other nations to promote an environmental consciousness and sustainable economies. After withdrawing from NAFTA, the new trade agreements will include requirements for protecting the air and the water and the land of all the countries we do business with.

Dennis Kucinich has a long history and strong committment of fighting for the environment. He was active in helping draft the first environmental law protecting the air, as a member of the Cleveland City Council 30 years ago and led the effort in Ohio challenging nuclear power as being unsafe, unreliable, and unsustainable. Internationally he attended the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, advocating a plan with Mikhail Gorbachev for a Global Green Deal that would enable the introduction of $50 billion of new solar projects around the world.

Support Dennis Kucinich and make America a leader in protecting our environment and creating a sustainable future.