(A post from Mayor Newsom. As a reminder, elected officials are encouraged to post on Calitics; we’ll do our best to promote them to the front page promptly. – promoted by Brian Leubitz)

Every day more San Francisco residents and businesses are signing up for two San Francisco programs that will cut monthly utility bills and help the City meet its greenhouse gas reduction goals. One is SF Energy Watch, which provides technical assistance and financial incentives that pays over half the cost of energy efficiency upgrades to commercial and multifamily properties. The other is GoSolarSF, which, when combined with federal tax credits and state incentives, can reduce the cost of installing a residential solar power system by more than 50 percent.

Edited by Brian for space. See the flip for the rest of the post.

In the past 2 years, 1,500 businesses and multifamily properties have saved over $5.7 million in energy bills through SF Energy Watch. The program has also delivered 6 megawatts (MW) of energy efficiency savings, which in turn reduces the amount of energy generation we need from polluting power plants.  

San Francisco currently has nearly 8 MW of in-City solar power, including the massive installation at Moscone Center. But the real San Francisco solar gold rush came when we rolled out GoSolarSF in July 2008. In the first seven months, 640 residents and enterprises had taken advantage of the program’s considerable incentives, applying to install nearly 2 MW of clean, renewable energy — 25 percent of the City’s overall solar portfolio.

All of this activity has been a big boost for companies that provide energy efficiency and solar services in the Bay Area. Because of the way San Francisco has structured these programs; local companies that hire locally benefit the most. SF Energy Watch has helped to sustain and/or expand companies–both service providers and suppliers–and currently supports 150 new and ongoing jobs in this emerging green field.

GoSolarSF has specific bonus incentives for employers who hire new staff through the City’s workforce development program. We have placed dozens of new employees in the local solar industry, and of the 640 projects under GoSolarSF, 83 percent are employing workforce development trainees.

On Tuesday of this week I introduced a resolution that will expand the SF Energy Watch program by nearly $4 million. The money for SF Energy Watch comes from California’s Public Goods Charge, a fund for renewable energy and energy efficiency that you pay into with a percentage of every utility bill.

These additional funds will allow the companies that provide energy efficiency services to add an additional 30 new employees on top of the 150 already employed.

SF Energy Watch and GoSolarSF help build the local economy and develop a skilled local workforce for the exploding green tech industry. But most importantly, these jobs are sustainable. They are not based on a single project, so when completed, the jobs do not disappear. Instead, these programs are open-ended, and in the case of GoSolarSF, supported by city legislation that helps feed the process. And I can see a time coming shortly when residential and commercial energy efficiency will be required by local or even statewide mandates.

On a final related note, last September I announced the Mayor’s Solar Founders’ Circle. This initiative served to inject an important new element in our solar efforts: providing free energy efficiency audits together with solar assessments for any business or non-profit in the City that wants it. This “efficiency first” approach is the smartest path to cost savings when planning to go solar.  Energy efficiency improvements to a property will decrease the size of the solar array needed to cut utility bills.

Listen to Mayor Newsom’s Green 960 radio show online or subscribe to his weekly policy discussions on iTunes.  Join Mayor Newsom on Facebook. You can also follow him on Twitter.

There’s an interesting dynamic happening in California.  At the national level, the state’s power is growing.  Californians hold the Speaker of the House and four key committee chairs, including the powerful Energy and Commerce Committee.  The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and now the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence have Californians at the helm.  Any energy and environmental policies will have to go through the committees of Californians, and they’ll have California allies inside the Administration, with the selection of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s Dr. Steven Chu as Energy Secretary and Los Angeles Deputy Mayor Nancy Sutley as head of the White House Council on Environmental Quality.  Other Californians are up for possible Administration jobs, like CA-31’s Xavier Becerra (US Trade Representative) and CA-36’s Jane Harman (CIA Director).  It’s a good time to be a California politician in Washington.

It’s a TERRIBLE time to be a California politician in California, as it dawns on everyone in Sacramento that the state is ungovernable and hurtling toward total chaos.  The two parties are miles apart from a budget deal, and even their biggest and boldest efforts would only fill about half the budget gap.  The peculiar mechanisms of state government, with its 2/3 rule for budget and tax provisions, and its artificial deadlines for bills to get through the legislature, which causes remarkable bottlenecks and “gut and amend” legislation changed wholesale in a matter of hours, and the failed experiment with direct democracy which has created unsustainable demands and mandates, make the state impossible to reform and even get working semi-coherently.  The state’s citizens hate their government and hate virtually everyone in it with almost equal fervor, yet find themselves helpless to actually change anything about it, and believe it or not, ACTUALLY THINK THEY’RE DOING A GOOD JOB setting policy through the initiative process, which is simply ignorant (though they paradoxically think that other voters aren’t doing a good job on initiatives).  The activist base does amazing grassroots work, very little of it in this state.  We have a political trade deficit where money and volunteerism leaves the state and nothing returns.  And the political media for a state of 38 million consists of a handful of reporters in Sacramento and a couple dudes with blogs.

Many of these problems have accumulated over a number of years and cannot be laid at the feet of anybody in particular.  But in general, the reason that we’ve gotten to this crisis point, the reason that California is a failed state, is because by and large the dominant political parties WANT IT THAT WAY.  I’m not saying that the state Democratic Party or its elected officials, for example, wants the state to be flung into the sea, metaphorically speaking, but there’s certainly a tendency toward the closed loops of insiders that prefer a predictable and stable status quo, that naturally restricts reform and leads to corruption, gridlock and crisis.  I’ll give you an example.  Last night I was on a conference call where Eric Bauman, Chair of the Los Angeles County Democratic Party, announced that he would drop out of the race for state party Chair and run for Vice-Chair, because when 78 year-old former State Senator John Burton entered the race, all his labor, organizational and elected support dried up.  Fitting that he didn’t mention his grassroots support, because it clearly doesn’t matter who they prefer.  

There is little doubt in my mind that John Burton will run the party, or rather delegate it to whatever lieutenant will run the party, in the exact same way it has been run for the last decade or so, characterized by missed opportunities to expand majorities, a lost recall election for Governor, cave-in after cave-in on key budget priorities and a failure to capitalize on the progressive wave of the last two electoral cycles.  These are not abstractions, and they have real-world effects, $41.8 billion of them at last count.  And honestly, the Special Assistant to Gray Davis didn’t represent all that much change, either.

We have an ossified party structure, and a phlegmatic legislative leadership that is unable to get its objectives met because the deck is essentially stacked against them.  The times call for a completely new vision, one that can energize a grassroots base and use citizen action to leverage the necessary unraveling of this dysfunctional government to make it work again.  The work on Prop. 8 since the election has been tremendous, but ultimately, if public schools are closing and unemployment is above 10% and the uninsured are rising and the pain felt in local communities is acute, then we have a much larger problem, one that requires a bigger movement allied with the civil rights movement to make change.

The key flashpoint is the 2010 Governor’s race.  There is currently no one in the field with the ability to break the lock that the status quo has on California and deliver a new majority empowered to bring the state back from the brink.  In an article published last month, Randy Shaw put it best.

None of the current field appears likely to galvanize a grassroots base, or to be willing to take on the “third rails” of California politics: massive prison spending, Prop 13 funding restrictions, or the need for major new education funding. Dianne Feinstein? She’ll be 77 years old on Election Day 2010, and she has long resisted, rather than supported, progressive change.

Jerry Brown just finished campaigning to defeat Proposition 5, which would have saved billions of unnecessary spending on the state’s prison industrial complex. This follows Brown’s television ads for the 2004 election, which helped narrowly defeat a reform of the draconian and extremely expensive “three strikes” law. Brown’s consistent coddling up to the prison guards union is the smoking gun showing that he is not a candidate for change.

Gavin Newsom came out against Prop 5 on the eve of the election, undermining his own “break from the past” image. He also spent another local election cycle opposing the very constituencies who an Obama-style grassroots campaign would need to attract.

With her Senate Intel. Committee post, it is unlikely that Feinstein will run.  He forgets John Garamendi, who supported Prop. 2 (!) because of his fealty to farming interests and who first ran for governor in 1982.

Shaw mentions that the state is ready for a Latina governor, and mentions the Sanchez sisters.  He’s right in part, but has the wrong individual in mind.  I am more convinced than ever that the only person with the strength, talent, grassroots appeal and forward-thinking progressive mindset to fundamentally change the electorate and work toward reform is Congresswoman Hilda Solis.  She authored the green jobs bill that Barack Obama is using as a national model.  She is a national leader on the issue of environmental justice and has the connections to working Californians that can inspire a new set of voters.  She beat an 18-year Democratic incumbent, Matthew Martinez, by 38 points to win her first Congressional primary.  She has worked tirelessly for progressive candidates across the state and the country.  In a state whose demographics are rapidly changing, she could be a powerful symbol of progress that could grab a mandate to finally overhaul this rot at the heart of California’s politial system once and for all.  This is not about one woman as a magic bullet that can change the system; this is about a woman at the heart of a movement.  A movement for justice and equality and dignity and respect.  A movement for boldness and progressive principles and inclusiveness and openness.  A movement that can spark across the state.

I know that Solis is interested in the Vice Chair of the Democratic caucus if Becerra takes the job in the Obama Administration.  Congresswoman, your state needs you desperately.  Please consider running for Governor and leaving a legacy of progress in California.

Yesterday’s adoption by the California Air Resources Board of a comprehensive plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is really worthy of praise.  Ignoring the bleatings of neo-Hooverists and apologists for polluters who insist that concern for the environment is a “job-killer,” the board, led by Mary Nichols, put forward 31 rules designed to cut carbon emissions to 1990 levels by 2020.  This will force innovation and provide a boost to the economy and the burgeoning industry of green technology, as the Governor noted in his remarks.

The Modesto Bee has a look at some of the plans.

INDUSTRY:

• Impose an emissions cap on utilities, refineries and other large industrial sources of greenhouse gases.

• Allow those large polluters to gradually lower emissions by participating in a cap-and-trade market.

TRANSPORTATION:

• Put into effect a 2002 California law requiring automakes to produce cleaner vehicles. The Bush administration has blocked the law, but state regulators expect President-elect Barack Obama’s administration will back it.

• Require fuel companies to reformulate fuels so they are a combined 10 percent less carbon-intensive by 2020.

• Give local governments incentives to curb urban sprawl and reduce how far people drive to work or school.

• Require cargo and cruise ships to turn off their engines while docked.

ENERGY:

• Require utilities to generate one-third of their electricity from renewable sources such as wind, solar and geothermal by 2020.

• Strengthen energy-efficiency standards for appliances, as well as for existing and new buildings.

The fact that a renewable standard, cap and trade, green building, smart growth and development, energy efficiency and clean fuels are all combined into this large agreement is very hopeful.  While the political sector is a mess, this is truly one area where California can become a model for the nation.  And while there will be up-front costs, those can be mitigated by expected federal attention to renewable energy and green jobs, which could allow consumers to be eligible for federal tax incentives to implement these ideas.  What’s more, as Nichols argued, this is a big-picture savings over the long term.

But Air Resource Board chairwoman Mary Nichols said California’s plan would save its residents and businesses money in the long run.

“We believe that California, again and again, has pushed for higher levels of efficiency in our electric sector, our buildings and appliances, and time after time it turns out efficiency measures have not only saved us money but leaped our economy ahead,” Nichols said after the vote.

A board report found that the average household would save $400 a year by driving more fuel-efficient vehicles and living in more energy-efficient homes. And already, private investors have given more than $2.5 billion this year to new companies that have sprung up in California, in part to respond to the state’s environmental goals, said Bob Epstein, co-founder of Environmental Entrepreneurs.

“Our president-elect has called for stimulating our economy,” said Bill Mcgavern, director of California’s Sierra Club. “I think he and the Congress will be looking to the state of California, and these measures can serve as a model for the rest of the country.”

This is one area where we can be proud to be Californians.  The SacBee has more.

Scott Gold at the LA Times reports today on a massive solar project that may alleviate some of the pain felt in the Antelope Valley:

The buzz in the Antelope Valley these days is about a company called eSolar, which is putting the finishing touches on a thermal solar energy facility here — 24,000 mirrors that glitter like diamonds when you approach on Avenue G. There are plans for several more facilities in the area, all larger, the company says.

Local officials are atwitter at the possibilities. Visitors and investors are expected from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. A slew of jobs would be created; there were 225 people working last week on the Avenue G facility alone, most of them locals. Lancaster Mayor R. Rex Parris said the solar plants could be the catalyst to restoring the sort of “intellectual excitement” that existed when aerospace, still a vital industry here, was the only game in town — when “if it went up, it came out of here,” he said.

“Now, we’re going to go a long way toward saving this world,” the mayor said. “Right here in Lancaster.”

I think it’s important to classify projects like this as what they are – INFRASTRUCTURE projects.  Too often we confine ourselves to thinking about infrastructure as solely referring to fixing roads or building physical structures like bridges.  A 21st-century energy creation system is the most important infrastructure improvement we can make, one that will not only create jobs but save billions in public health and environmental degradation costs.  Any stimulus from the federal government that includes infrastructure improvements should help incentivize companies like eSolar, as well as laying down high-speed broadband lines throughout the country, building a transferable energy grid, etc.

In the recent past in California, the way a depressed city could revitalize their economy was to bring a prison into town.  Now, the potential of green jobs is being realized, making the future (pardon the pun) sunnier:

It’s heady talk, and people are listening. Lancaster and the surrounding valley are suffering, even by the standards of a community that long ago acclimated to a boom-and-bust cycle. Many here are living on the edge, and some beyond, with tens of thousands more expected to arrive in coming years.

There is a sense that development cannot come fast enough, not with shops closing, one in five people living in poverty, high unemployment and the highest mortality rate in Los Angeles County. Not with so many houses falling into foreclosure that the city of Lancaster has gone into real estate — buying and renovating empty homes to slow the decline of neighborhoods.

“It’s bad,” said William Turner, 21, who got a job installing eSolar mirrors through a temp agency. He is among those vying for one of the full-time positions the company will offer soon; competition will be fierce and many of those hired will be overqualified for their jobs, officials said.

“People around here are really hurting,” Turner said. “We need a change.”

The new energy economy is California’s way out of the economic crisis.  Whether it’s building solar and wind plants or transferable energy grids or carbon capture and sequestration retrofitting or green building add-ons or the next generation of green cars, the potential for bringing hope to downtrodden communities, creating millions of jobs and protecting the planet is great.

The past few days have seen another spate of “OMG, Republican incumbents are in trouble!” stories in the traditional media.  Aside from them not understanding and internalizing the theory of coattails, this problem is particularly acute among the California media, where gerrymandering is just supposed to lock up Congressional and legislative seats airtight, except when, you know, it doesn’t.  Peculiar to this rendering of the world is the idea that nobody ever moves, dies, or reaches the age of 18 in any particular district, and thus voter registration statistics are completely static.  But of course this is not true, and once the Democratic Party started putting resources into registering new and lapsed voters, why look what happened:

One of the major reasons for these competitive contests has been the narrowing gap in registered voters between the parties. While Republicans still enjoy a substantial advantage over Democrats in all three districts, their leads have shrunk significantly.

Four years ago, Republicans led Democrats among registered voters by margins of 17 percent in the Orange County-based 46th, 15 percent in the San Diego-area 50th and 11 percent in the Riverside County-based 45th. By this year’s registration deadline of Oct. 20, those leads had shrunk by 6 percent in the 50th, 5 percent in the 46th and 6 percent in the 45th.

There are still the conventional wisdom-besotted punditocracy that simply can’t conceive of these major shifts in the electorate (it’s not like anything has happened the past eight years that would lead people to desert the Republican Party in droves, right?), who believe that incumbents just win and that’s the end of it.  But just ask one of those incumbents what he fears on Tuesday:

HUNTINGTON BEACH – Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Huntington Beach/Long Beach said Friday he’s concerned that Republicans will be discouraged by a possible Democratic landslide at the polls, affecting his re-election bid.

“If (Republican nominee John) McCain does not do well, and Republicans stay home, my lead could evaporate,” the nine-term incumbent of the 46th Congressional District said.

Huntington Beach Mayor Debbie Cook, the Democratic challenger, said the race is a “statistical dead heat,” and agreed that a solid turnout for change – from the economic problems facing the country – could be the difference in Tuesday’s hotly contested race.

“All the uncertainty that’s going on now is helping,” she said, adding that incumbents who have been “part of the system for the past 20 years” could be vulnerable.

This is all the more reason why Democrats and progressives need to remember Jim Corman and get as many voters to the polls as possible.  And Don’t Stop At The Top, of course.

And if the scenario is bright in the Congressional races, the Assembly looks even brighter.  Why, even Dan Walters has figured this one out.

Voters may not realize that they could dramatically alter that balance, but interest groups that are pouring millions of dollars into legislative and ballot measure campaigns certainly get it.

Democrats could pick up one seat in the Senate and are so certain of gaining three to five seats in the Assembly that they’ve diverted resources into several marginal districts, taking advantage of Obamania-inspired voter registration gains, to shoot for the six added seats that would give them a two-thirds majority. That margin is required for the budget and tax increases and could happen as the Capitol wrestles with a rapidly deteriorating economy and a fast-growing budget deficit.

We know about those top-line seats: AD-80, AD-78, AD-15, AD-10, AD-26.  But it’s Linda Jones’ race in AD-36 that has captured my attention.  She represents the ultimate swing vote as the potential 54th Democrat in the State Assembly, the vote that would give us a 2/3 majority, which in California is a governing majority.  And Linda Jones happens to be really great, campaiging on a message of green jobs in the waning days of the race.

As part of her campaign to create a stronger economy for the region, Democratic Assembly Candidate Linda Jones (36th District) today announced her “High Desert Region Green Jobs Initiative” – using ‘green jobs’ to increase opportunities for unemployed and underemployed adults in the High Desert communities. Lt. Governor John Garamendi, a longtime advocate for environmental protection and renewable energy, offered his full support of the plan, calling it a “giant leap forward” for the region’s economy.

“Investing in the ‘green economy’ is a win-win because it will create jobs and increase our clean energy efficiency,” said Linda Jones. “The High Desert Region Green Jobs Initiative will create outreach, educational, and training programs to recruit, develop, and sustain a green industry that will create jobs, increase our clean energy efficiency, and grow our economy for the region.”

There’s a website, High Desert Green Jobs, that details the initiative.  It’s fantastic that someone in a swing district trying to become the first Democratic member of the Assembly from this region in 34 years is offering such a bold agenda.

This district had an eight-point GOP lean just two years ago.  Now the registration gap is GONE.  400 votes separate Democrats and Republicans.  Don’t give me that redistricting stuff, nothing’s stopping this progressive wave.  I’m excited for Linda Jones and so is her community.

There’s just one day to go.  You need to Stay for Change because you can have a major impact right here in California.  I’m going to give predictions on everything in the morning.  But right now, I’m psyched.

We’re all still choking on the speed and enormity of the trillion-dollar bailout about to be given to executives on Wall Street instead of to homeowners who got snookered into teaser rates and ARMs.  It’s important to note that there is another way on this.  Faced with a collapse of the financial markets in the 1930s, the solution was not seen in paying off the investor class for the bad decisions they’ve made, but paying workers to produce and create, and building up the backbone of the economy again, allowing prosperity to trickle up instead of down.  We are at another crossroads across the nation and in California, and yet the answer is so clear.  We have an imminent fight to mitigate the effects of global warming, and whoever solves this puzzle will not only save the world trillions in collateral damage from the disastrous fallout, but make a tidy profit besides.  In fact, as a recent study has shown, the effort here in California will unquestionably improve the long-term prospects for the economy.

Costly as it may seem, California’s mandate to cut climate-altering exhausts from vehicles and industry by nearly one-third in the next 12 years actually will boost the economy, a state analysis released Wednesday predicts.

The improvements in fuel and energy efficiency and extra clean-technology jobs needed to achieve the required 30 percent emissions reduction would result in a net household savings of $400 to $500 a year and a net 0.2 percent or $4 billion gain in the total annual output of goods and services, according to the report.

The view that says we have to freeze short-term cash outlays to stop the catastrophic effects of climate change ought to be discredited on this of all days as reductivist and shortsighted.  The cost of the kinds of damage you would see from a sustained rise in global temperature is so astronomical that investing in green technology is incredibly efficient in the long run.  And it’s a jobs program to boot:

Most sectors of the economy, including transportation and warehousing, agriculture, forestry, manufacturing and construction, would by 2020 see moderate increases in employment and production as a result of investing in the more expensive but efficient building designs, lighting, vehicles and equipment, the study said.

The major exception would be the electric power companies that would experience about 16 percent less production and about 14 percent fewer jobs.

Which of course would be more than offset by the increase in jobs in the same sector through solar and wind and biomass and tidal and geothermal production.

The financial mess puts into stark relief the need for a long-view approach to the economic future.  Investments that seem unaffordable now hold massive potential in just a few short years.  We have to be bold and become the center for green jobs in the United States and around the world.  In uncertain times, it’s the only way to secure California’s future.

(Like Al Gore has always said, the climate crisis is both a danger and an opportunity. As an aside, here at yKos, Speaker Pelosi and Sen. Reid were held up by Shrub’s FISA demands. We here at Calitics wish Rep. Solis the best of luck in helping to advocate a reasonable and balanced approach towards the use of eavesdropping. Rep. Solis is always somebody we can count on to work for good, progressive public policy. – promoted by Brian Leubitz)

Well, the Republican Minority is intent on obstructing our progress on important health, appropriations, and energy bills, so we find ourselves in session on this Saturday morning.

Today the House is considering H.R. 3220, The New Direction for Energy Independence, National Security, and Consumer Protection Act.  I’m very pleased that Title I of this comprehensive bill is the Green Jobs Act, legislation (H.R. 2847) I introduced to authorize $125 million for workforce training targeted at veterans, displaced workers, and individuals – including at risk youth – who seek employment pathways out of poverty. Training would be for jobs in such sectors as green building, energy efficiency and retrofit – jobs that can lead to self-sufficiency and prosperity through higher wages, access to benefits and more career choices.

The Green Jobs Act also creates groundbreaking “Pathways Out of Poverty” grants to specifically target individuals in families under 200 percent of the federal poverty line or self-sufficiency standard for local areas where the training occurs.  The Pathways Out of Poverty grants will help ensure that this new and profitable green collar sector of the American workforce is open to all Americans, regardless of their current income level.  With proper training and targeted work force investment, we can help retrain existing workers whose current jobs are becoming obsolete and lift low-income workers out of poverty and into the expanding field of green collar jobs.

The strength of our nation’s economy depends on the availability of a highly skilled and well trained workforce. We owe it to future generations to have the courage and commitment to choose a path toward a sustainable, secure energy future through a commitment to a green collar economy.

I look forward to the House passing this important legislation today and urge you to contact President Bush to express your support for it too.

www.house.gov/solis
www.youtube.com/rephildasolis