Publish to Newswire
Add an EventFrom the Open-Publishing Calendar
From the Open-Publishing Newswire
Indybay Feature
SF Unions Pimping For PG&E In 2010 IBEW 1245 Honors Gov Browns Corrupt CUPC Chair Peevey
SF unions are supporting PG&E to prevent any alternative energy and public power
SF Unions Pimping For PG&E And IBEW 1245 Honors Brown's Corrupt PUC Chair Peevey
San Francisco's Green Power Plan Still Stalled by Corporate Interests a Decade Later
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/18347-considered-a-national-example-san-franciscos-green-power-plan-has-struggled-for-a-decade-to-overcome-opposition-from-monopoly-corporate-interests
Friday, 23 August 2013 00:00
By Darwin Bond Graham, Truthout | News Analysis
wable energy assets at thousands of sites in San Francisco. The plan's huge public popularity and technical authority have not protected it from attack and subversion.
In 2004, San Francisco committed itself to a revolutionary economic and environmental rejuvenation project centered on complete overhaul of the city's energy system. Or did it?
Back then, the plan called for investing more than a billion dollars in energy efficiency upgrades and publicly-owned renewable energy assets at thousands of sites within city limits. Voters authorized the issuance of revenue bonds to fund an unprecedented public energy investment program. The money for this gargantuan green energy and local jobs fund was to be sourced from the utility bills of ratepayers, a few pennies a month no longer siphoned off by the investor-owned utility as private profits.
Called CleanPowerSF, the idea was a reinvention of a municipal utility for San Francisco, a perennial sky's-the-limit goal of the city's progressives, but reinvented with new legal authority and new technologies that would not require the public to take control of costly and crumbling transmission lines and pipelines. Instead, the public would simply take over energy purchasing, and ratepayer funds, leaving the corporate utility in place to deliver the juice at a strictly regulated rate.
Then nine long years of war between environmentalists, labor, politicians, and the region's 800-pound gorilla utility corporation, PG&E, ground down the vision of San Francisco as a post-carbon, green jobs mecca into what might be a fatally compromised plan.
Instead of purchasing actual renewably generated electrons, San Francisco's proposed green power program, through several revisions, became heavily reliant on using opaque market credits that supposedly offset the pollution created by the electricity's true source: mostly gas-fired power plants. Instead of generating local jobs, the energy would be imported from distant sources, possibly exploiting non-union labor. This has not sat well with environmentalist and unions, two key constituencies in San Francisco's power structure.
On August 13, the local and truly green potential of CleanPowerSF was dealt its most recent body blow. Three of the city's five Public Utilities Commission (PUC) members voted down a proposal to set CleanPowerSF's rates. "Without set rates, the program can't move forward," Charles Sheehan, a spokesperson for the PUC, bluntly stated. What was supposed to be a mere regulatory decision based on technical judgment ended up being a political decision, and the balance of political power once again fell against green energy and local jobs.
But even with all these setbacks, the original vision of San Francisco's municipal power program is slowly coming back into focus, say advocates who have fought for the plan for over a decade. Grassroots activists say that regardless of its flaws, CleanPowerSF will still be the largest municipal green energy and local jobs project of its kind in the nation. Many see it as a model for other communities, a real path away from fossil fuels, and centralized, corporate-owned power plants.
That's if the political obstacles can be overcome.
Community Choice Aggregation - CCA
"San Francisco is kind of a litmus test for this thing," said Paul Fenn, president of Local Power, Inc., a consulting firm that helps cities devise clean energy plans. The "thing" Fenn refers to is community choice aggregation, a little-known authority that allows cities and counties to lump their residents into one pool to purchase bulk energy on the open market at the cheapest rates possible.
Community choice aggregation (CCA) is probably the most boring and benign-sounding name possible for one of the most radical policy mechanisms actually within reach today. Aggregation cuts middlemen utilities out of the process of deciding where electrical, gas, and heat energy come from. Most importantly, aggregation programs allow local communities to determine how ratepayer surpluses will be spent. Fitting the nonprofit, public purpose of aggregation, ratepayer surpluses are usually refunded as consumer savings. However, according to Fenn and other energy policy experts, the real transformative benefits of CCA - the litmus test, if you will - depends on whether ratepayer surpluses can be channeled into investments that are intended to green and localize the energy supply.
Community choice aggregation was Paul Fenn's brainchild. Deregulation of energy markets in the late 1990s wreaked havoc on states like California, but Fenn saw something few others did. Beneath the procorporate agenda that allowed companies like Enron to capture billions of dollars from the public and crash the power grid was a window of opportunity to create a radically democratic reorganization of the economy. It would require subverting the big energy corporations and utilities, however.
In the darkness of California's rolling blackouts, Fenn wrote Assembly Bill 117, California's CCA law, which was approved in 2002. The nation's largest corporate utilities were just then counting their record profits from a ruthless campaign attacking California's homeowners and businesses with "megawatt laundering" and "overscheduling" scams.
In 2007, Fenn incorporated his company, Local Power, as a vehicle to advocate for the transformative CCA vision. Fenn has become an evangelist of CCA's potential to eliminate carbon and nuclear energy sources, and to spur the creation of thousands of jobs through what he called the local buildout of renewable energy assets. His team at Local Power, Inc. frequently gives presentations to cities and rural communities considering aggregation and has been influential in Illinois and Ohio, where hundreds of municipalities have embraced the concept, including Chicago, the largest CCA in the nation. None of these aggregation authorities, however, are using their ratepayer surpluses to build local, green publicly-owned assets.
That's part of the reason CCA advocates have staked so much on San Francisco's public power plan. The logic goes like this: If San Francisco can't do it, who can? When it comes to exercising the full potential of the CCA model, no other city has been remotely as ambitious as the West Coast metropolis of 800,000 residents. At the same time, no other city has seen as bruising a political battle over its aggregation program as San Francisco.
Power Politics
"In theory, you have the political will to do this in San Francisco," said Fenn. "We also have critical mass of technical providers. Elsewhere, you don't have the strong grassroots political base, nor do you have the real agency to push it forward."
However, even with this political will and strong grassroots support, CleanPowerSF has faced enormous opposition. America's energy and utilities corporations, which are possibly the most potent forces in national and local politics, have seen CCA as an existential threat from the very beginning and have sought to kill the idea by any means. They have spared few resources in their anti-CCA campaign.
Eric Brooks, an organizer with Our City, is one of the grassroots advocates who has pushed the original vision of CCA in San Francisco since the mid-2000s. According to Brooks, there have been some allies in government, but many of the city's most powerful offices have tried to kill the municipal energy plan from the start.
"The reality is some of the staff that were in place at the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission started opposing CleanPowerSF back in 2004, right as it was getting off the ground," said Brooks. "Much of the staff at that point had been put in place by Willie Brown," he added.
Brown, the former Speaker of the California State Assembly, ran San Francisco from 1996 until 2004. He was one of the most powerful mayors in the city's history, and still today exerts enormous influence behind the scenes, and through the legacy of his appointees and former staff, many of whom are still in government.
Among Brown's many corporate supporters while he was a state legislator, and especially while he presided over San Francisco, was PG&E. In the late 1980s, Brown steered PG&E to do business with favored firms owned by his friends, according to a 1995 report in the San Francisco Chronicle. It's not clear what the company got in return at the time, but throughout his tenure, Brown staunchly supported the utility and stacked the city's government with its allies.
In theory, PG&E is a strictly regulated monopoly overseen by California's Public Utilities Commission and by city agencies like San Francisco's Public Utilities Commission. In reality, these state and local commissions are characterized by regulatory capture, a process in which the tables are turned and the company obtains power over its government watchdogs. San Francisco Bay Guardian reporter Rebecca Bowe describes "social and professional ties running deep within California's insular energy community" that result in "cozy relationships" between regulators and industry executives.
PG&E also cultivates a vast web of political allies through its corporate-controlled foundation. PG&E distributes tens of millions annually to nonprofits and local governments. For example, in 2011 PG&E granted $23,000 to environmental organizations in Avila Beach to fund "marine education" programs. Avila Beach is just a few miles down the Pacific Coast from the company's nuclear power plant. PG&E has funded the select labor unions that have opposed CleanPowerSF and related green energy ballot propositions. In 2010, PG&E paid the San Francisco Fire Fighters $25,000, according to the PG&E Foundation's tax documents. In 2008, the Fire Fighters union campaigned against Proposition H, a bond initiative meant to fund clean energy investments through CleanPowerSF, with mailers claiming it would cause energy bills to "increase $400 a year, on average, for 30 years."
PG&E's energy supplies come primarily from gas-fired power plants and the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant, although the company also controls an extensive network of hydroelectric power stations. PG&E's major energy generation investment to fulfill future demand is a 586-megawatt natural gas-fired station planned to come online in 2016, according to the company's most recent annual report. In 2012, PG&E booked $800 million in profit, and its stockholders received $746 million in dividends. With this kind of cash flow, the company and its executives aggressively lobby regulators and state and local legislators, especially in San Francisco.
Since CleanPowerSF was first approved in 2004, PG&E has showered $69 million in campaign contributions, mostly to fund ballot initiatives that would protect its monopoly position, but also to buy the support of various California politicians.
In a town with more than a few billionaires and tycoons, PG&E's executives and board members are comfortably among the city's elite. PG&E's board of directorsincludes representatives of America's largest and most powerful corporations and banks, including Pepsico, AT&T, Spectra Energy and the Rothschild banking firm. PG&E's CEO Anthony Earley, Jr. was paid $9.9 million in 2012, while the company's president, Christopher Johns, was paid $5.1 million, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
After Willie Brown was termed out of the mayor's office in 2004, PG&E retained him for "consulting services," with a quarter million-dollar contract. Purchasing Brown's long-term allegiance was the same as purchasing a portion of the city's sprawling bureaucracy of employees, especially those in the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, the city's energy regulator to which the mayor appoints commissioners.
"Most people in the city understand that in some ways Willie Brown is still the mayor of San Francisco," said Brooks. "When Brown made appointments to decide who would lead the city's Public Utilities Commission, he made certain decisions based on what PG&E wanted. Mayor Newsom had the same staff as Brown and also made PG&E friendly-appointments, and the current mayor, Ed Lee, carried over many of Newsom's staff."
In 2010, Brown joined PG&E in an effort to pass Proposition 16. Prop 16 would have gutted the state law that allows cities to form CCAs. The same year, PG&E's corporate foundation made a $15,000 donation to the Willie L. Brown Center on Politics and Public Service, a nonprofit policy think tank set up by Brown a few years prior. Proposition 16 was PG&E's biggest political expenditure of all time. According to data from the California Secretary of State, the company spent $46 million on the effort. In spite of Willie Brown's assistance and the corporation's millions in advertising, the ballot initiative failed on election day.
Bruce Brugman, former publisher of the San Francisco Bay Guardian, the city's progressive newspaper and one of the main proponents of municipal power since 1969, calls Willie Brown the "ally and mentor" of current mayor Ed Lee. Brugman was one of the first to expose Brown's $200,000 deal with PG&E and has closely followed the city's political alliances as they morph over time. Lee, who has been in office since January of 2011, strongly opposes CleanPowerSF.
Eric Brooks believes this dynasty of mayors beholden to Willie Brown and PG&E has been the main impediment to CleanPowerSF.
"PG&E hates CleanPowerSF and wants to kill it," said Brooks.
In the Shell of the Old
As if PG&E's vehement attempt to destroy CleanPowerSF wasn't enough, the program's own proponents have had a difficult time crafting a plan they can all agree on.
Many advocates of the CCA concept who helped to establish CleanPowerSF have since become skeptics. They are increasingly wary of supporting CleanPowerSF as staff in the city's Public Utilities Commission have steered it away from a local buildout of renewables and toward a program that relies on renewable energy credits (RECs) and power purchases from large energy corporations, often sourcing "green" energy from industrial plants located hundreds of miles away.
"They have negotiated a contract with Shell Energy for a 30-megawatt purchase of renewable power on the open market," said Al Weinrub, coordinator of the Local Clean Energy Alliance. "This is not the kind of deal CCA advocates were in favor of back in 2004." Although Weinrub is unhappy with the current CleanPowerSF plan, he remains a firm believer in the potential of CCAs. Weinrub's organization is the hub of dozens of groups seeking to proliferate CCAs and other renewable energy development mechanisms across California. He worries that CleanPowerSF is being set up to fail.
CleanPowerSF's contract with Shell Energy North America, a subsidiary of the giant oil corporation, would supply the city's public power CCA with part of its total energy portfolio for a few years until the ambitious local buildout and efficiency upgrades are enough to fully support the city's energy needs. According to Brooks, the contract with Shell only accounts for around 5 percent of the energy that will ultimately be procured by CleanPowerSF through a local buildout. "The peak load in San Francisco is 800 to 900 megawatts," said Brooks. "Shell was just for 20-30 megawatts. It's a tiny piece of the program."
Even so, the prospect of paying Shell $19.5 million has many progressives bristling. They point to Shell's dismal human rights abuse record in Africa and elsewhere and Shell's full-blown commitment to developing oil and gas supplies that will destroy the planet's climate system (for example Shell's major Canadian tar sands mines) as just two reasons why doing business with the company runs counter to CleanPowerSF's goals.
"We have asked staff to find a comfortable compromise with this program in order to address the various concerns that have emerged from labor, to the various power mix, to the affordability of this program," said Francesca Vietor, a commissioner of the city's PUC, and strong supporter of CleanPowerSF. Part of that compromise is purchasing power from Shell, something Vietor has seemed no more eager to do than staunch critics of CleanPowerSF. Vietor and other proponents say, however, that it's a temporary means to an end.
"The key point here is that CleanPowerSF is going to use Shell as a bridge - the private outfit will deliver power generated at renewable facilities to the city's power operation, which will resell it to customers . . . for a while," explained Tim Redmond, the former editor of the San Francisco Bay Guardian, in a blog post last year about the program's political obstacles.
"The goal is to use the revenue stream from the sales of power to back bonds that will allow the city to build its own renewable energy system. Five, maybe 10 years down the road, San Francisco will have solar generators on city property (including large swaths of Public Utilities Commission property in the East Bay), wind generators, maybe at some point tidal generators, and will be able to sell cheap, clean local power to customers."
"Shell will be gone," concluded Redmond.
By extension so would PG&E, except for its role in upkeeping the wires and pipelines through which a portion of the total energy supply moves.
"We approved the contract knowing full well we were contracting with Shell. It was for a short term, a four and a half-year term to initiate CleanPowerSF," said San Francisco Supervisor John Avalos. Avalos, a progressive politician with strong support from labor and environmental groups, has championed CleanPowerSF. He is often seen around town at rallies urging action to address climate change, including a recent street protest during an Obama fundraising visit, organized by opponents of the Keystone XL Pipeline.
If CleanPowerSF is sabotaged and unable to launch a local buildout beyond the Shell contract, say activists like Weinrub, it could spell the end of the city's CCA experiment as residents and businesses opt out of the plan and stick with PG&E.
Because of this nexus of obstacles blocking the launch of CleanPowerSF, progressives have mobilized to keep the pressure on the city's Public Utilities Commission. According to Weinrub, a coalition of activists in the Bay Area convinced the city to hire Fenn's company, Local Power, Inc. to produce a detailed business plan based on CCA's original goals of local buildout. That plan, built on an incredible quantity of data, is about the most granular and complete map of CCA's radical potential to transform a city's energy footprint as has ever been produced.
For months the plan got no traction with PUC staff. Weinrub said the city just sat on it. When pressed by Weinrub and other grassroots organizations, the city's Public Utilties Commission expressed skepticism of the viability of CleanPowerSF.
Todd Rydstrom, chief financial officer of the city's Public Utilities Commission, has repeatedly warned city officials that he sees enormous risks in Local Power Inc.'s business plan for CleanPowerSF. Rydstrom believes that the billion-dollar local buildout will be bogged down by its own sheer scale, in particular, by the requirement that the city build the solar energy equivalent of 24 more Sunset Reservoir projects over 10 years. Sunset Reservoir is a 5-megawatt solar array, one of the largest municipal renewable resources in the United States, built atop one of San Francisco's water facilities. CleanPowerSF, as planned by Local Power, Inc., would also require construction of about 2,000 wind turbines in and around the city.
In March of 2013, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission let their contract with Local Power expire, leaving key parts of the plan unfinished. Even so, Fenn's last presentation to the city that month spelled out the basics of CleanPowerSF: $1.3 billion in purchases of 100 percent renewable energy on the market over 10 years. A $1 billion local buildout of renewable energy resources, mostly through small, distributed solar installations and efficiency upgrades, many of them "behind the meter." Being behind the meter means energy would be produced across thousands of rooftops and stretched through countless building and infrastructure upgrades, stored in batteries, distributed, and smartly transferred across the grid at peak demand moments.
"Balanced resources," said Brooks, describing the plan. "That's the vision. Every six months to a year we have to just keep hammering on the SFPUC staff."
Hammering didn't seem to be working when the city dropped Local Power's contract. Earlier this year, CleanPowerSF seemed to have been completely gutted of the local buildout originally at its center. PG&E meanwhile was recovering from its disastrous San Bruno pipeline explosion, which killed 8 and injured dozens in a small city just south of San Francisco. Emboldened again, the company was doing all it could to convince city officials to further water down CleanPowerSF. Meanwhile PG&E pressed the California PUC to approve its competing green energy program. That program, dubbed PG&E's "Green Option," would allow customers to pay a slight premium on their monthly bills for the privilege of claiming their lights and heat come from 100 percent renewable sources.
According to Weinrub, PG&E's green option relies on RECs, which are not only not green, but also would undermine the goal of building real renewable resources.
"This PG&E proposal is likely to inhibit the development of new renewable generating sources," said Weinrub. "For example, if ratepayers are lead to believe that a small price premium will result in 100 percent renewable electricity, they will not support pursuit of other truly renewable energy developments, such as the local energy efficiency and the new generation planned for CleanPowerSF’s nascent Community Choice program."
Instead, according to Weinrub, PG&E will purchase RECs to greenwash electricity it otherwise generates from natural gas power plants, large hydroelectric damns and its nuclear plant.
And while PG&E is pushing full bore to gain regulator approval for its Green Option, the electricians' union, allied with PG&E, has been busy plastering the city with ads claiming that CleanPowerSF will cause homeowners' utility bills to double. Calling this "San Francisco Shell Shock," the union launched a web site and online petitioncalling for CleanPowerSF to be nixed. PG&E and its allies have seized fully on CleanPowerSF's power purchase agreement with Shell as a propaganda weapon to destroy the program before it even begins.
After 10 years, San Francisco's green energy and local jobs vision never seemed so far away.
Crisis
The roller coaster of San Francisco energy politics took another unexpected turn during an August 3 public meeting, at which the city's new director of CCA programs, Kim Malcolm, gave a presentation that seemed to embrace the original vision of CleanPowerSF as a municipal green and local energy development engine. She told commissioners that she hoped to use the city's bonding authority to issue upward of $200 million in debt to finance a local renewables and efficiency buildout.
"They appear to be adopting Local Power's core recommendations - to build renewable generation and energy efficiency starting from the launch of the program," said Charles Schultz, a colleague of Fenn's. Schultz noted that $200 million is far below a billion, but he said it's ballpark of the kind of thinking that's required to make good on CCA's promise. "The public still thinks this is still just a Shell program," he added.
Malcolm, a former administrative law judge at the California Public Utilities Commission, took over CleanPowerSF earlier this year. "I think she came in and read all the work that's been done, the draft financial models, the risk reports, and she probably thought, this makes a lot of sense," said Fenn, who admitted he was surprised by her recommendations.
All of which may explain the next jostling turn on the roller coaster. On August 13, San Francisco's Public Utilities Commission voted three to two against setting rates for CleanPowerSF, effectively blocking it from moving forward with Malcom's stripped down, but significant, $200 million local buildout at its center.
Commissioners voting against the plan cited concerns about local jobs and higher utility bills as their major reasons for stalling CleanPowerSF. Angelo King, a member of San Francisco's environment commission verbalized these concerns in a public comment to the PUC just before their vote: "You need to make sure the metrics of your program show the economic impact and show jobs to those people that don't drive Priuses, that don't buy organic foods." King urged the city's Public Utilities Commission to block CleanPowerSF and force it back to the drawing board. "This program here, what we have now, is a downgrade from where the original stated goals were. When we originally looked at it, we said there were going to be jobs, in-city generation."
After the vote, various local newspapers described CleanPowerSF as being caught in limbo, stalemated in spite of the popularity of the idea and in spite of the veto-proof majority the city's Board of Supervisors used to approve the program last year.
The PUC's vote led supervisor John Avalos, to exclaim that the commissioners have precipitated a "constitutional crisis."
"It’s the whole political establishment coming down against public power," said Avalos. He added that he suspects the "invisible hand" of PG&E is behind the effort to delay the launch of CleanPowerSF, and he said that the Public Utilities Commission's unwillingness to green-light the program has created a conflict in which the will of the city's ultimate authority, the Board of Supervisors, is being blocked by a bureaucracy influenced too much by the city's wealthy corporate community.
The San Francisco Chamber of Commerce's CEO Bob Linscheid opined after the vote that "It is time to rethink the CleanPowerSF program," meaning to cancel it. A vice president of PG&E is on the Chamber's board of directors, and PG&E has long funded the business lobbying group.
"We all understand the politics of the situation," said Supervisor Avalos in a statement issued before the Public Utilities Commision's rate-setting vote. "The board of supervisors and every major environmental group in the city supports this plan. The mayor, PG&E, and its union oppose it. We can't afford any further political gamesmanship in an attempt to kill this program."
All Eyes on San Francisco
Advocates believe that CleanPowerSF will be a model for other cities to follow. Before casting her vote in favor of setting CleanPowerSF's rates, PUC commissioner Vietor called the program "an opportunity to lead the nation by example."
"The whole world is waiting for the us to get our act together," said Eric Brooks. San Francisco is the most important city right now for fighting the climate crisis because we have this opportunity to do the community buildout of green energy through CCA."
Officials outside of California concur.
"What San Francisco is doing is a really big deal," said Catherine Hurley. "The model of doing bonding to do the local buildout actually makes a lot of sense." Hurley is the sustainability programs coordinator for the city of Evanston, Illinois, and runs the city's CCA program. Evanston began aggregating its energy purchases in 2012, producing immediate savings for city residents. Ratepayer bills dropped 38 percent below what Constellation Energy, the region's corporate utility, charged. But Evanston isn't building local renewable assets.
According to Hurley, the Evanston CCA uses RECs ostensibly to provide customers with 100 percent renewable energy, even though much of the wattage is actually produced by coal-fired plants. That's true with virtually every existing CCA in the nation.
"I think this discussion of what role the local government should and could play in greening local energy supply is super interesting," said Hurley. "The San Francisco program could impact us. Our alderman, who are more green and progressive, they'll see it, and if it succeeds out there, they'll want to do it here.
IBEW 1245 Shills For PG&E In Opposing SF Plan For Renewable Energy
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/S-F-to-get-cleaner-energy-and-a-battle-4323664.php
S.F. to get cleaner energy - and a battle
Neal J. Riley
Published 6:18 pm, Saturday, March 2, 2013
San Francisco is months away from launching a program that would allow residents to purchase their energy from renewable sources - at a premium.
The hard-fought program, which has been debated for decades, was approved last year, but some worry that before the greener energy grid can even start, it will be derailed.
Later this month, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission may adopt rates for the program, which is called CleanPowerSF. One scenario would have those customers paying twice as much as those who remain with Pacific Gas and Electric Co. The PUC also expects this month to get the results of a customer survey that will help determine which neighborhoods are most receptive to paying more for green energy when the program begins in October.
But frustrated members of the Board of Supervisors are worried that while the details are still being worked out, the PUC's $1.4 million outreach campaign, which was approved last month, isn't doing enough to respond to attacks against CleanPowerSF.
The Stop the Shell Shock campaign, funded by an electrical workers union, has mailed out flyers, made robocalls and set up a sleek website urging San Franciscans to rethink the five-year, $19.5 million contract with Shell Energy North America for 100 percent renewable power.
"I'm worried right now that we're actually looking kind of flat-footed," said Supervisor John Avalos at a recent meeting of the Local Agency Formation Commission, which is working with the city to create a public power program. "We have to do everything we can to make sure we do have that customer base. There's a lot at stake."
The deal approved by supervisors to lay the groundwork for city-owned renewable power generation includes $13 million in public funds set aside as reserves, some of which would be paid to Shell if customer demand weakens.
About half the city's 375,000 residential energy customers will automatically be enrolled in the new program by October, but can opt out. The program needs 90,000 customers to remain viable.
"We are progressing as planned - we're on time," said Barbara Hale, the PUC assistant general manager for power at the LAFCO meeting. "We will begin our notification and education program throughout the summer."
But that wasn't good enough for some supervisors, who requested a meeting with PUC communications staff to discuss countering the campaign against CleanPowerSF.
"I'm very frustrated right now. ... We should've been doing this months ago," said Supervisor Eric Mar. "I think what we're up against is a really sophisticated propaganda campaign that's spreading tremendous misinformation out there."
Mar called the Stop the Shell Shock website "very well done, with graphics and lots of information." Meanwhile, the CleanPowerSF Twitter account hasn't been updated since November and the program's Facebook page appears to have been taken down.
"They've framed it early on, and it's going to be very hard to raise awareness and counter that," Mar said of the efforts by CleanPowerSF opponents.
PUC spokesman Charles Sheehan said the supervisors' comments are being taken seriously and that the PUC will be meeting with community groups and updating the CleanPowerSF website to counter "misinformation." There will also be an advertising campaign and a door-to-door education effort starting in April or May.
"It's not surprising that we're seeing this flow of information out there," he said. "We will work just as hard to set the record straight."
Supervisor David Campos said he wants customers to know that Shell already sells energy to PG&E.
"The difference between our program and theirs is that we're buying energy from Shell with the idea of eventually building an infrastructure that allows us to create our own energy," he said.
Just how far the city can go in pushing back against the Stop the Shell Shock campaign is another strategic factor. LAFCO legal counsel Nancy Miller said the city is prohibited from participating in a political campaign.
"This is kind of a pseudo-campaign," Miller said. "But you can provide facts and information."
Campos also suggested that the city look into whether PG&E, which is effectively having its decades-old monopoly on electricity ended by the program, is illegally coordinating with the union on the campaign, though Campos said he had no proof.
Hunter Stern, president of International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 1245, which is funding the Stop the Shell Shock campaign, said he doesn't want PG&E anywhere near the union's efforts. The union, which opposes CleanPowerSF in part because some electrical workers it represents could lose their jobs once the program takes effect, has not yet publicly documented how much it has spent on outreach. Stern said the amount is less than $100,000 and can't compete with the $1.4 million that the PUC has to spend.
"We will continue to use wise, cost-effective methods to make sure people know our information," he said. "The facts are the facts - this is a contract with Shell Energy."
Neal J. Riley is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: nriley [at] sfchronicle.com Twitter: @realdealneal
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/S-F-to-get-cleaner-energy-and-a-battle-4323664.php#ixzz2MW0xcqvp
Utility controlled PUC chief Peevey receives an awkward award for safety by IBEW 1245 and utility union
PUC chief Peevey receives an awkward award for safety
http://www.mercurynews.com/internal-affairs/ci_23520606/internal-affairs-puc-chief-peevey-receives-an-awkward
By the Mercury News
Posted: 06/22/2013 08:04:25 PM PDT
Updated: 06/23/2013 06:25:03 AM PDT
When it comes to awards, timing can be everything. Just ask Michael Peevey, the longtime president of the California Public Utilities Commission and husband of Democratic state Sen. Carol Liu.
Last week, the Coalition of California Utilities Employees honored Peevey at a Sacramento confab for his "tireless work on system reliability and safety."
Which is dandy, except that it comes at a particularly sensitive time for Peevey and his agency.
Many question the PUC's regulatory resolve since the September 2010 Pacific Gas & Electric Co. gas pipeline explosion in San Bruno that killed eight and destroyed dozens of homes. State Sen. Jerry Hill, D-San Mateo, has called for Peevey's ouster over what he
California Public Utilities Commission President Michael Peevey, 2011 (KARL MONDON)
considers a culture of "complacency" and "incompetence" at the agency.
The PUC has been accused of a too-cozy relationship with utilities it regulates -- Peevey, appointed in 2002, is a former Southern California Edison president. And the PUC is now weighing PG&E penalties for San Bruno amid claims that it reassigned lawyers urging stiffer fines. That flap also flared last week. A legal paper reported the PUC's top lawyer got heckled by his staff for a speech at a regulatory attorney conference that they felt questioned their loyalty and judgment.
So when Peevey showed up at the Sacramento event, an NBC Bay Area team pounced. In a report that led off with a woman whose daughter died in the blast calling Peevey's acceptance of the award "appalling," the news team asked Peevey to respond on camera.
"They chose to honor me," Peevey replied. "I'm more than pleased to be with them. That's all I have to say to you."
He added when asked what he'd done in the name of safety that "the record is pretty clear" and walked away.
Peevey later explained to us in a statement that accepting the honor simply showed his support for organized labor.
"As someone who grew up in a strong union family and was myself a union official for seven years," Peevey said, "the recognition of my efforts by these unionists is very gratifying."
Corporate Shill For PG&E, IBEW 1245 Attacks "Clean Power" IBEW 1245 Opposed SF Labor Council Campaign For Public Power
http://www.sfexaminer.com/local/2013/02/pge-union-ibew-local-1245-continues-fight-against-cleanpowersf
PG&E union IBEW Local 1245 continues fight against CleanPowerSF
By: Chris Roberts | 02/18/13 7:36 PM
S.F. Examiner Staff Writer | Follow On Twitter @Cbloggy
COURTESY PHOTO
Logo for the Stop San Francisco Shell Shock campaign, who are working to stop the CleanPowerSF program the Board of Supervisors already approved.
A once-fine city besmirched with viscous, oily pollution, and a populace forced to shell out hard-earned green for filthy energy.
The picture painted by opponents of CleanPowerSF — a government program that will allow current PG&E electricity customers to purchase alternative, renewable power from Shell Energy North America — is not pretty.
The City is in the final stages of hashing out a $19.5 million deal with Shell that promises local power customers the ability to purchase costlier but cleaner energy from that company instead of PG&E. Residential electricity bills are projected to be between $11.54 and $94.10 more expensive per month.
The program has been fought tooth and nail by PG&E and its union, IBEW Local 1245, which has shown no sign of letting up despite the program’s approval.
“The Board of Supervisor’s [sic] plan to go into business with Shell to create ‘CleanPowerSF’ is a dirty deal that won’t create one new watt of green energy, will raise our power bills and send our local dollars to Shell in Houston,” claims online campaign Stop San Francisco Shell Shock, an effort of Local 1245 to sway public opinion against CleanPowerSF.
In September, the board approved the program in an 8-3 veto-proof vote, but it could be in jeopardy if too few San Franciscans sign up. Shell is due a $15 million payout if the contract is terminated within five years.
As of Monday, the Shell Shock campaign page had collected more than 1,300 supporters on Facebook and another 5,377 on its Change.org petition page.
It’s unclear how heavily the union is backing the effort to sway public opinion. The campaign has not filed financial statements with either the Ethics Commission or the secretary of state, both of which monitor political spending. Local 1245 did not respond to requests for comment.
croberts [at] sfexaminer.com
Read more at the San Francisco Examiner: http://www.sfexaminer.com/local/2013/02/pge-union-ibew-local-1245-continues-fight-against-cleanpowersf#ixzz2LMyPRYhf
Local 1245 Helps Defeat
San Francisco Power Propositions
http://www.ibew.org/articles/02journal/0201/p5_1245.htm
January/February 2002 IBEW Journal
A major effort by Local 1245 members played a role in close victories over two ballot questions that would have municipalized San Franciscos power delivery system.
Im very proud of our members for the effort they made, said Local 1245 Business Manager Perry Zimmerman. They proved that our union will not just stand by when our jobs are threatened.
On Election Day, November 6, voters narrowly rejected Measure I, which would have created a Municipal Utility District to include San Francisco and nearby Brisbane.
But it took a close count of absentee ballots to confirm the defeat of Proposition F to create a San Francisco power authority. Proposition F called for the city takeover of Pacific Gas & Electric, which declared bankruptcy nearly a year ago. Proposition F would also have folded Local 1245 members into city unions.
Local 1245 leaders attributed the come-from-behind victory to the hard work of the members, many of whom would have lost jobs or would have been subject to demotions and lost benefits if the measures were successful.
We were three-to-one behind when we got into it, said Assistant Business Manager Jim McCauley. Were pretty proud of ourselves.
Throughout the campaign against Proposition F, Local 1245 members emphasized that the cost of acquiring PG&E would likely increase customer rates and jeopardize service reliability and worker safety. In addition to a thorough grassroots campaign among union members, the public parts of the campaign included placing billboards around town, appearing at news conferences and radio shows, distributing literature and visiting newspaper editorial boards.
McCauley, who coordinated the Local 1245 effort, successfully persuaded members of central labor councils not to endorse Proposition F and Measure I. McCauley said San Franciscos Local 6 was also a key ally. Local 1245, based in nearby Walnut Creek, used the Local 6 union hall in San Francisco for meetings and grassroots coordination.
They loaned us their hall and anything we needed, they did for us, said McCauley, adding that 1245 members used the Local 6 hall for phone banks and meetings before precinct walking.
San Francisco's Green Power Plan Still Stalled by Corporate Interests a Decade Later
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/18347-considered-a-national-example-san-franciscos-green-power-plan-has-struggled-for-a-decade-to-overcome-opposition-from-monopoly-corporate-interests
Friday, 23 August 2013 00:00
By Darwin Bond Graham, Truthout | News Analysis
wable energy assets at thousands of sites in San Francisco. The plan's huge public popularity and technical authority have not protected it from attack and subversion.
In 2004, San Francisco committed itself to a revolutionary economic and environmental rejuvenation project centered on complete overhaul of the city's energy system. Or did it?
Back then, the plan called for investing more than a billion dollars in energy efficiency upgrades and publicly-owned renewable energy assets at thousands of sites within city limits. Voters authorized the issuance of revenue bonds to fund an unprecedented public energy investment program. The money for this gargantuan green energy and local jobs fund was to be sourced from the utility bills of ratepayers, a few pennies a month no longer siphoned off by the investor-owned utility as private profits.
Called CleanPowerSF, the idea was a reinvention of a municipal utility for San Francisco, a perennial sky's-the-limit goal of the city's progressives, but reinvented with new legal authority and new technologies that would not require the public to take control of costly and crumbling transmission lines and pipelines. Instead, the public would simply take over energy purchasing, and ratepayer funds, leaving the corporate utility in place to deliver the juice at a strictly regulated rate.
Then nine long years of war between environmentalists, labor, politicians, and the region's 800-pound gorilla utility corporation, PG&E, ground down the vision of San Francisco as a post-carbon, green jobs mecca into what might be a fatally compromised plan.
Instead of purchasing actual renewably generated electrons, San Francisco's proposed green power program, through several revisions, became heavily reliant on using opaque market credits that supposedly offset the pollution created by the electricity's true source: mostly gas-fired power plants. Instead of generating local jobs, the energy would be imported from distant sources, possibly exploiting non-union labor. This has not sat well with environmentalist and unions, two key constituencies in San Francisco's power structure.
On August 13, the local and truly green potential of CleanPowerSF was dealt its most recent body blow. Three of the city's five Public Utilities Commission (PUC) members voted down a proposal to set CleanPowerSF's rates. "Without set rates, the program can't move forward," Charles Sheehan, a spokesperson for the PUC, bluntly stated. What was supposed to be a mere regulatory decision based on technical judgment ended up being a political decision, and the balance of political power once again fell against green energy and local jobs.
But even with all these setbacks, the original vision of San Francisco's municipal power program is slowly coming back into focus, say advocates who have fought for the plan for over a decade. Grassroots activists say that regardless of its flaws, CleanPowerSF will still be the largest municipal green energy and local jobs project of its kind in the nation. Many see it as a model for other communities, a real path away from fossil fuels, and centralized, corporate-owned power plants.
That's if the political obstacles can be overcome.
Community Choice Aggregation - CCA
"San Francisco is kind of a litmus test for this thing," said Paul Fenn, president of Local Power, Inc., a consulting firm that helps cities devise clean energy plans. The "thing" Fenn refers to is community choice aggregation, a little-known authority that allows cities and counties to lump their residents into one pool to purchase bulk energy on the open market at the cheapest rates possible.
Community choice aggregation (CCA) is probably the most boring and benign-sounding name possible for one of the most radical policy mechanisms actually within reach today. Aggregation cuts middlemen utilities out of the process of deciding where electrical, gas, and heat energy come from. Most importantly, aggregation programs allow local communities to determine how ratepayer surpluses will be spent. Fitting the nonprofit, public purpose of aggregation, ratepayer surpluses are usually refunded as consumer savings. However, according to Fenn and other energy policy experts, the real transformative benefits of CCA - the litmus test, if you will - depends on whether ratepayer surpluses can be channeled into investments that are intended to green and localize the energy supply.
Community choice aggregation was Paul Fenn's brainchild. Deregulation of energy markets in the late 1990s wreaked havoc on states like California, but Fenn saw something few others did. Beneath the procorporate agenda that allowed companies like Enron to capture billions of dollars from the public and crash the power grid was a window of opportunity to create a radically democratic reorganization of the economy. It would require subverting the big energy corporations and utilities, however.
In the darkness of California's rolling blackouts, Fenn wrote Assembly Bill 117, California's CCA law, which was approved in 2002. The nation's largest corporate utilities were just then counting their record profits from a ruthless campaign attacking California's homeowners and businesses with "megawatt laundering" and "overscheduling" scams.
In 2007, Fenn incorporated his company, Local Power, as a vehicle to advocate for the transformative CCA vision. Fenn has become an evangelist of CCA's potential to eliminate carbon and nuclear energy sources, and to spur the creation of thousands of jobs through what he called the local buildout of renewable energy assets. His team at Local Power, Inc. frequently gives presentations to cities and rural communities considering aggregation and has been influential in Illinois and Ohio, where hundreds of municipalities have embraced the concept, including Chicago, the largest CCA in the nation. None of these aggregation authorities, however, are using their ratepayer surpluses to build local, green publicly-owned assets.
That's part of the reason CCA advocates have staked so much on San Francisco's public power plan. The logic goes like this: If San Francisco can't do it, who can? When it comes to exercising the full potential of the CCA model, no other city has been remotely as ambitious as the West Coast metropolis of 800,000 residents. At the same time, no other city has seen as bruising a political battle over its aggregation program as San Francisco.
Power Politics
"In theory, you have the political will to do this in San Francisco," said Fenn. "We also have critical mass of technical providers. Elsewhere, you don't have the strong grassroots political base, nor do you have the real agency to push it forward."
However, even with this political will and strong grassroots support, CleanPowerSF has faced enormous opposition. America's energy and utilities corporations, which are possibly the most potent forces in national and local politics, have seen CCA as an existential threat from the very beginning and have sought to kill the idea by any means. They have spared few resources in their anti-CCA campaign.
Eric Brooks, an organizer with Our City, is one of the grassroots advocates who has pushed the original vision of CCA in San Francisco since the mid-2000s. According to Brooks, there have been some allies in government, but many of the city's most powerful offices have tried to kill the municipal energy plan from the start.
"The reality is some of the staff that were in place at the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission started opposing CleanPowerSF back in 2004, right as it was getting off the ground," said Brooks. "Much of the staff at that point had been put in place by Willie Brown," he added.
Brown, the former Speaker of the California State Assembly, ran San Francisco from 1996 until 2004. He was one of the most powerful mayors in the city's history, and still today exerts enormous influence behind the scenes, and through the legacy of his appointees and former staff, many of whom are still in government.
Among Brown's many corporate supporters while he was a state legislator, and especially while he presided over San Francisco, was PG&E. In the late 1980s, Brown steered PG&E to do business with favored firms owned by his friends, according to a 1995 report in the San Francisco Chronicle. It's not clear what the company got in return at the time, but throughout his tenure, Brown staunchly supported the utility and stacked the city's government with its allies.
In theory, PG&E is a strictly regulated monopoly overseen by California's Public Utilities Commission and by city agencies like San Francisco's Public Utilities Commission. In reality, these state and local commissions are characterized by regulatory capture, a process in which the tables are turned and the company obtains power over its government watchdogs. San Francisco Bay Guardian reporter Rebecca Bowe describes "social and professional ties running deep within California's insular energy community" that result in "cozy relationships" between regulators and industry executives.
PG&E also cultivates a vast web of political allies through its corporate-controlled foundation. PG&E distributes tens of millions annually to nonprofits and local governments. For example, in 2011 PG&E granted $23,000 to environmental organizations in Avila Beach to fund "marine education" programs. Avila Beach is just a few miles down the Pacific Coast from the company's nuclear power plant. PG&E has funded the select labor unions that have opposed CleanPowerSF and related green energy ballot propositions. In 2010, PG&E paid the San Francisco Fire Fighters $25,000, according to the PG&E Foundation's tax documents. In 2008, the Fire Fighters union campaigned against Proposition H, a bond initiative meant to fund clean energy investments through CleanPowerSF, with mailers claiming it would cause energy bills to "increase $400 a year, on average, for 30 years."
PG&E's energy supplies come primarily from gas-fired power plants and the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant, although the company also controls an extensive network of hydroelectric power stations. PG&E's major energy generation investment to fulfill future demand is a 586-megawatt natural gas-fired station planned to come online in 2016, according to the company's most recent annual report. In 2012, PG&E booked $800 million in profit, and its stockholders received $746 million in dividends. With this kind of cash flow, the company and its executives aggressively lobby regulators and state and local legislators, especially in San Francisco.
Since CleanPowerSF was first approved in 2004, PG&E has showered $69 million in campaign contributions, mostly to fund ballot initiatives that would protect its monopoly position, but also to buy the support of various California politicians.
In a town with more than a few billionaires and tycoons, PG&E's executives and board members are comfortably among the city's elite. PG&E's board of directorsincludes representatives of America's largest and most powerful corporations and banks, including Pepsico, AT&T, Spectra Energy and the Rothschild banking firm. PG&E's CEO Anthony Earley, Jr. was paid $9.9 million in 2012, while the company's president, Christopher Johns, was paid $5.1 million, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
After Willie Brown was termed out of the mayor's office in 2004, PG&E retained him for "consulting services," with a quarter million-dollar contract. Purchasing Brown's long-term allegiance was the same as purchasing a portion of the city's sprawling bureaucracy of employees, especially those in the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, the city's energy regulator to which the mayor appoints commissioners.
"Most people in the city understand that in some ways Willie Brown is still the mayor of San Francisco," said Brooks. "When Brown made appointments to decide who would lead the city's Public Utilities Commission, he made certain decisions based on what PG&E wanted. Mayor Newsom had the same staff as Brown and also made PG&E friendly-appointments, and the current mayor, Ed Lee, carried over many of Newsom's staff."
In 2010, Brown joined PG&E in an effort to pass Proposition 16. Prop 16 would have gutted the state law that allows cities to form CCAs. The same year, PG&E's corporate foundation made a $15,000 donation to the Willie L. Brown Center on Politics and Public Service, a nonprofit policy think tank set up by Brown a few years prior. Proposition 16 was PG&E's biggest political expenditure of all time. According to data from the California Secretary of State, the company spent $46 million on the effort. In spite of Willie Brown's assistance and the corporation's millions in advertising, the ballot initiative failed on election day.
Bruce Brugman, former publisher of the San Francisco Bay Guardian, the city's progressive newspaper and one of the main proponents of municipal power since 1969, calls Willie Brown the "ally and mentor" of current mayor Ed Lee. Brugman was one of the first to expose Brown's $200,000 deal with PG&E and has closely followed the city's political alliances as they morph over time. Lee, who has been in office since January of 2011, strongly opposes CleanPowerSF.
Eric Brooks believes this dynasty of mayors beholden to Willie Brown and PG&E has been the main impediment to CleanPowerSF.
"PG&E hates CleanPowerSF and wants to kill it," said Brooks.
In the Shell of the Old
As if PG&E's vehement attempt to destroy CleanPowerSF wasn't enough, the program's own proponents have had a difficult time crafting a plan they can all agree on.
Many advocates of the CCA concept who helped to establish CleanPowerSF have since become skeptics. They are increasingly wary of supporting CleanPowerSF as staff in the city's Public Utilities Commission have steered it away from a local buildout of renewables and toward a program that relies on renewable energy credits (RECs) and power purchases from large energy corporations, often sourcing "green" energy from industrial plants located hundreds of miles away.
"They have negotiated a contract with Shell Energy for a 30-megawatt purchase of renewable power on the open market," said Al Weinrub, coordinator of the Local Clean Energy Alliance. "This is not the kind of deal CCA advocates were in favor of back in 2004." Although Weinrub is unhappy with the current CleanPowerSF plan, he remains a firm believer in the potential of CCAs. Weinrub's organization is the hub of dozens of groups seeking to proliferate CCAs and other renewable energy development mechanisms across California. He worries that CleanPowerSF is being set up to fail.
CleanPowerSF's contract with Shell Energy North America, a subsidiary of the giant oil corporation, would supply the city's public power CCA with part of its total energy portfolio for a few years until the ambitious local buildout and efficiency upgrades are enough to fully support the city's energy needs. According to Brooks, the contract with Shell only accounts for around 5 percent of the energy that will ultimately be procured by CleanPowerSF through a local buildout. "The peak load in San Francisco is 800 to 900 megawatts," said Brooks. "Shell was just for 20-30 megawatts. It's a tiny piece of the program."
Even so, the prospect of paying Shell $19.5 million has many progressives bristling. They point to Shell's dismal human rights abuse record in Africa and elsewhere and Shell's full-blown commitment to developing oil and gas supplies that will destroy the planet's climate system (for example Shell's major Canadian tar sands mines) as just two reasons why doing business with the company runs counter to CleanPowerSF's goals.
"We have asked staff to find a comfortable compromise with this program in order to address the various concerns that have emerged from labor, to the various power mix, to the affordability of this program," said Francesca Vietor, a commissioner of the city's PUC, and strong supporter of CleanPowerSF. Part of that compromise is purchasing power from Shell, something Vietor has seemed no more eager to do than staunch critics of CleanPowerSF. Vietor and other proponents say, however, that it's a temporary means to an end.
"The key point here is that CleanPowerSF is going to use Shell as a bridge - the private outfit will deliver power generated at renewable facilities to the city's power operation, which will resell it to customers . . . for a while," explained Tim Redmond, the former editor of the San Francisco Bay Guardian, in a blog post last year about the program's political obstacles.
"The goal is to use the revenue stream from the sales of power to back bonds that will allow the city to build its own renewable energy system. Five, maybe 10 years down the road, San Francisco will have solar generators on city property (including large swaths of Public Utilities Commission property in the East Bay), wind generators, maybe at some point tidal generators, and will be able to sell cheap, clean local power to customers."
"Shell will be gone," concluded Redmond.
By extension so would PG&E, except for its role in upkeeping the wires and pipelines through which a portion of the total energy supply moves.
"We approved the contract knowing full well we were contracting with Shell. It was for a short term, a four and a half-year term to initiate CleanPowerSF," said San Francisco Supervisor John Avalos. Avalos, a progressive politician with strong support from labor and environmental groups, has championed CleanPowerSF. He is often seen around town at rallies urging action to address climate change, including a recent street protest during an Obama fundraising visit, organized by opponents of the Keystone XL Pipeline.
If CleanPowerSF is sabotaged and unable to launch a local buildout beyond the Shell contract, say activists like Weinrub, it could spell the end of the city's CCA experiment as residents and businesses opt out of the plan and stick with PG&E.
Because of this nexus of obstacles blocking the launch of CleanPowerSF, progressives have mobilized to keep the pressure on the city's Public Utilities Commission. According to Weinrub, a coalition of activists in the Bay Area convinced the city to hire Fenn's company, Local Power, Inc. to produce a detailed business plan based on CCA's original goals of local buildout. That plan, built on an incredible quantity of data, is about the most granular and complete map of CCA's radical potential to transform a city's energy footprint as has ever been produced.
For months the plan got no traction with PUC staff. Weinrub said the city just sat on it. When pressed by Weinrub and other grassroots organizations, the city's Public Utilties Commission expressed skepticism of the viability of CleanPowerSF.
Todd Rydstrom, chief financial officer of the city's Public Utilities Commission, has repeatedly warned city officials that he sees enormous risks in Local Power Inc.'s business plan for CleanPowerSF. Rydstrom believes that the billion-dollar local buildout will be bogged down by its own sheer scale, in particular, by the requirement that the city build the solar energy equivalent of 24 more Sunset Reservoir projects over 10 years. Sunset Reservoir is a 5-megawatt solar array, one of the largest municipal renewable resources in the United States, built atop one of San Francisco's water facilities. CleanPowerSF, as planned by Local Power, Inc., would also require construction of about 2,000 wind turbines in and around the city.
In March of 2013, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission let their contract with Local Power expire, leaving key parts of the plan unfinished. Even so, Fenn's last presentation to the city that month spelled out the basics of CleanPowerSF: $1.3 billion in purchases of 100 percent renewable energy on the market over 10 years. A $1 billion local buildout of renewable energy resources, mostly through small, distributed solar installations and efficiency upgrades, many of them "behind the meter." Being behind the meter means energy would be produced across thousands of rooftops and stretched through countless building and infrastructure upgrades, stored in batteries, distributed, and smartly transferred across the grid at peak demand moments.
"Balanced resources," said Brooks, describing the plan. "That's the vision. Every six months to a year we have to just keep hammering on the SFPUC staff."
Hammering didn't seem to be working when the city dropped Local Power's contract. Earlier this year, CleanPowerSF seemed to have been completely gutted of the local buildout originally at its center. PG&E meanwhile was recovering from its disastrous San Bruno pipeline explosion, which killed 8 and injured dozens in a small city just south of San Francisco. Emboldened again, the company was doing all it could to convince city officials to further water down CleanPowerSF. Meanwhile PG&E pressed the California PUC to approve its competing green energy program. That program, dubbed PG&E's "Green Option," would allow customers to pay a slight premium on their monthly bills for the privilege of claiming their lights and heat come from 100 percent renewable sources.
According to Weinrub, PG&E's green option relies on RECs, which are not only not green, but also would undermine the goal of building real renewable resources.
"This PG&E proposal is likely to inhibit the development of new renewable generating sources," said Weinrub. "For example, if ratepayers are lead to believe that a small price premium will result in 100 percent renewable electricity, they will not support pursuit of other truly renewable energy developments, such as the local energy efficiency and the new generation planned for CleanPowerSF’s nascent Community Choice program."
Instead, according to Weinrub, PG&E will purchase RECs to greenwash electricity it otherwise generates from natural gas power plants, large hydroelectric damns and its nuclear plant.
And while PG&E is pushing full bore to gain regulator approval for its Green Option, the electricians' union, allied with PG&E, has been busy plastering the city with ads claiming that CleanPowerSF will cause homeowners' utility bills to double. Calling this "San Francisco Shell Shock," the union launched a web site and online petitioncalling for CleanPowerSF to be nixed. PG&E and its allies have seized fully on CleanPowerSF's power purchase agreement with Shell as a propaganda weapon to destroy the program before it even begins.
After 10 years, San Francisco's green energy and local jobs vision never seemed so far away.
Crisis
The roller coaster of San Francisco energy politics took another unexpected turn during an August 3 public meeting, at which the city's new director of CCA programs, Kim Malcolm, gave a presentation that seemed to embrace the original vision of CleanPowerSF as a municipal green and local energy development engine. She told commissioners that she hoped to use the city's bonding authority to issue upward of $200 million in debt to finance a local renewables and efficiency buildout.
"They appear to be adopting Local Power's core recommendations - to build renewable generation and energy efficiency starting from the launch of the program," said Charles Schultz, a colleague of Fenn's. Schultz noted that $200 million is far below a billion, but he said it's ballpark of the kind of thinking that's required to make good on CCA's promise. "The public still thinks this is still just a Shell program," he added.
Malcolm, a former administrative law judge at the California Public Utilities Commission, took over CleanPowerSF earlier this year. "I think she came in and read all the work that's been done, the draft financial models, the risk reports, and she probably thought, this makes a lot of sense," said Fenn, who admitted he was surprised by her recommendations.
All of which may explain the next jostling turn on the roller coaster. On August 13, San Francisco's Public Utilities Commission voted three to two against setting rates for CleanPowerSF, effectively blocking it from moving forward with Malcom's stripped down, but significant, $200 million local buildout at its center.
Commissioners voting against the plan cited concerns about local jobs and higher utility bills as their major reasons for stalling CleanPowerSF. Angelo King, a member of San Francisco's environment commission verbalized these concerns in a public comment to the PUC just before their vote: "You need to make sure the metrics of your program show the economic impact and show jobs to those people that don't drive Priuses, that don't buy organic foods." King urged the city's Public Utilities Commission to block CleanPowerSF and force it back to the drawing board. "This program here, what we have now, is a downgrade from where the original stated goals were. When we originally looked at it, we said there were going to be jobs, in-city generation."
After the vote, various local newspapers described CleanPowerSF as being caught in limbo, stalemated in spite of the popularity of the idea and in spite of the veto-proof majority the city's Board of Supervisors used to approve the program last year.
The PUC's vote led supervisor John Avalos, to exclaim that the commissioners have precipitated a "constitutional crisis."
"It’s the whole political establishment coming down against public power," said Avalos. He added that he suspects the "invisible hand" of PG&E is behind the effort to delay the launch of CleanPowerSF, and he said that the Public Utilities Commission's unwillingness to green-light the program has created a conflict in which the will of the city's ultimate authority, the Board of Supervisors, is being blocked by a bureaucracy influenced too much by the city's wealthy corporate community.
The San Francisco Chamber of Commerce's CEO Bob Linscheid opined after the vote that "It is time to rethink the CleanPowerSF program," meaning to cancel it. A vice president of PG&E is on the Chamber's board of directors, and PG&E has long funded the business lobbying group.
"We all understand the politics of the situation," said Supervisor Avalos in a statement issued before the Public Utilities Commision's rate-setting vote. "The board of supervisors and every major environmental group in the city supports this plan. The mayor, PG&E, and its union oppose it. We can't afford any further political gamesmanship in an attempt to kill this program."
All Eyes on San Francisco
Advocates believe that CleanPowerSF will be a model for other cities to follow. Before casting her vote in favor of setting CleanPowerSF's rates, PUC commissioner Vietor called the program "an opportunity to lead the nation by example."
"The whole world is waiting for the us to get our act together," said Eric Brooks. San Francisco is the most important city right now for fighting the climate crisis because we have this opportunity to do the community buildout of green energy through CCA."
Officials outside of California concur.
"What San Francisco is doing is a really big deal," said Catherine Hurley. "The model of doing bonding to do the local buildout actually makes a lot of sense." Hurley is the sustainability programs coordinator for the city of Evanston, Illinois, and runs the city's CCA program. Evanston began aggregating its energy purchases in 2012, producing immediate savings for city residents. Ratepayer bills dropped 38 percent below what Constellation Energy, the region's corporate utility, charged. But Evanston isn't building local renewable assets.
According to Hurley, the Evanston CCA uses RECs ostensibly to provide customers with 100 percent renewable energy, even though much of the wattage is actually produced by coal-fired plants. That's true with virtually every existing CCA in the nation.
"I think this discussion of what role the local government should and could play in greening local energy supply is super interesting," said Hurley. "The San Francisco program could impact us. Our alderman, who are more green and progressive, they'll see it, and if it succeeds out there, they'll want to do it here.
IBEW 1245 Shills For PG&E In Opposing SF Plan For Renewable Energy
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/S-F-to-get-cleaner-energy-and-a-battle-4323664.php
S.F. to get cleaner energy - and a battle
Neal J. Riley
Published 6:18 pm, Saturday, March 2, 2013
San Francisco is months away from launching a program that would allow residents to purchase their energy from renewable sources - at a premium.
The hard-fought program, which has been debated for decades, was approved last year, but some worry that before the greener energy grid can even start, it will be derailed.
Later this month, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission may adopt rates for the program, which is called CleanPowerSF. One scenario would have those customers paying twice as much as those who remain with Pacific Gas and Electric Co. The PUC also expects this month to get the results of a customer survey that will help determine which neighborhoods are most receptive to paying more for green energy when the program begins in October.
But frustrated members of the Board of Supervisors are worried that while the details are still being worked out, the PUC's $1.4 million outreach campaign, which was approved last month, isn't doing enough to respond to attacks against CleanPowerSF.
The Stop the Shell Shock campaign, funded by an electrical workers union, has mailed out flyers, made robocalls and set up a sleek website urging San Franciscans to rethink the five-year, $19.5 million contract with Shell Energy North America for 100 percent renewable power.
"I'm worried right now that we're actually looking kind of flat-footed," said Supervisor John Avalos at a recent meeting of the Local Agency Formation Commission, which is working with the city to create a public power program. "We have to do everything we can to make sure we do have that customer base. There's a lot at stake."
The deal approved by supervisors to lay the groundwork for city-owned renewable power generation includes $13 million in public funds set aside as reserves, some of which would be paid to Shell if customer demand weakens.
About half the city's 375,000 residential energy customers will automatically be enrolled in the new program by October, but can opt out. The program needs 90,000 customers to remain viable.
"We are progressing as planned - we're on time," said Barbara Hale, the PUC assistant general manager for power at the LAFCO meeting. "We will begin our notification and education program throughout the summer."
But that wasn't good enough for some supervisors, who requested a meeting with PUC communications staff to discuss countering the campaign against CleanPowerSF.
"I'm very frustrated right now. ... We should've been doing this months ago," said Supervisor Eric Mar. "I think what we're up against is a really sophisticated propaganda campaign that's spreading tremendous misinformation out there."
Mar called the Stop the Shell Shock website "very well done, with graphics and lots of information." Meanwhile, the CleanPowerSF Twitter account hasn't been updated since November and the program's Facebook page appears to have been taken down.
"They've framed it early on, and it's going to be very hard to raise awareness and counter that," Mar said of the efforts by CleanPowerSF opponents.
PUC spokesman Charles Sheehan said the supervisors' comments are being taken seriously and that the PUC will be meeting with community groups and updating the CleanPowerSF website to counter "misinformation." There will also be an advertising campaign and a door-to-door education effort starting in April or May.
"It's not surprising that we're seeing this flow of information out there," he said. "We will work just as hard to set the record straight."
Supervisor David Campos said he wants customers to know that Shell already sells energy to PG&E.
"The difference between our program and theirs is that we're buying energy from Shell with the idea of eventually building an infrastructure that allows us to create our own energy," he said.
Just how far the city can go in pushing back against the Stop the Shell Shock campaign is another strategic factor. LAFCO legal counsel Nancy Miller said the city is prohibited from participating in a political campaign.
"This is kind of a pseudo-campaign," Miller said. "But you can provide facts and information."
Campos also suggested that the city look into whether PG&E, which is effectively having its decades-old monopoly on electricity ended by the program, is illegally coordinating with the union on the campaign, though Campos said he had no proof.
Hunter Stern, president of International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 1245, which is funding the Stop the Shell Shock campaign, said he doesn't want PG&E anywhere near the union's efforts. The union, which opposes CleanPowerSF in part because some electrical workers it represents could lose their jobs once the program takes effect, has not yet publicly documented how much it has spent on outreach. Stern said the amount is less than $100,000 and can't compete with the $1.4 million that the PUC has to spend.
"We will continue to use wise, cost-effective methods to make sure people know our information," he said. "The facts are the facts - this is a contract with Shell Energy."
Neal J. Riley is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: nriley [at] sfchronicle.com Twitter: @realdealneal
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/S-F-to-get-cleaner-energy-and-a-battle-4323664.php#ixzz2MW0xcqvp
Utility controlled PUC chief Peevey receives an awkward award for safety by IBEW 1245 and utility union
PUC chief Peevey receives an awkward award for safety
http://www.mercurynews.com/internal-affairs/ci_23520606/internal-affairs-puc-chief-peevey-receives-an-awkward
By the Mercury News
Posted: 06/22/2013 08:04:25 PM PDT
Updated: 06/23/2013 06:25:03 AM PDT
When it comes to awards, timing can be everything. Just ask Michael Peevey, the longtime president of the California Public Utilities Commission and husband of Democratic state Sen. Carol Liu.
Last week, the Coalition of California Utilities Employees honored Peevey at a Sacramento confab for his "tireless work on system reliability and safety."
Which is dandy, except that it comes at a particularly sensitive time for Peevey and his agency.
Many question the PUC's regulatory resolve since the September 2010 Pacific Gas & Electric Co. gas pipeline explosion in San Bruno that killed eight and destroyed dozens of homes. State Sen. Jerry Hill, D-San Mateo, has called for Peevey's ouster over what he
California Public Utilities Commission President Michael Peevey, 2011 (KARL MONDON)
considers a culture of "complacency" and "incompetence" at the agency.
The PUC has been accused of a too-cozy relationship with utilities it regulates -- Peevey, appointed in 2002, is a former Southern California Edison president. And the PUC is now weighing PG&E penalties for San Bruno amid claims that it reassigned lawyers urging stiffer fines. That flap also flared last week. A legal paper reported the PUC's top lawyer got heckled by his staff for a speech at a regulatory attorney conference that they felt questioned their loyalty and judgment.
So when Peevey showed up at the Sacramento event, an NBC Bay Area team pounced. In a report that led off with a woman whose daughter died in the blast calling Peevey's acceptance of the award "appalling," the news team asked Peevey to respond on camera.
"They chose to honor me," Peevey replied. "I'm more than pleased to be with them. That's all I have to say to you."
He added when asked what he'd done in the name of safety that "the record is pretty clear" and walked away.
Peevey later explained to us in a statement that accepting the honor simply showed his support for organized labor.
"As someone who grew up in a strong union family and was myself a union official for seven years," Peevey said, "the recognition of my efforts by these unionists is very gratifying."
Corporate Shill For PG&E, IBEW 1245 Attacks "Clean Power" IBEW 1245 Opposed SF Labor Council Campaign For Public Power
http://www.sfexaminer.com/local/2013/02/pge-union-ibew-local-1245-continues-fight-against-cleanpowersf
PG&E union IBEW Local 1245 continues fight against CleanPowerSF
By: Chris Roberts | 02/18/13 7:36 PM
S.F. Examiner Staff Writer | Follow On Twitter @Cbloggy
COURTESY PHOTO
Logo for the Stop San Francisco Shell Shock campaign, who are working to stop the CleanPowerSF program the Board of Supervisors already approved.
A once-fine city besmirched with viscous, oily pollution, and a populace forced to shell out hard-earned green for filthy energy.
The picture painted by opponents of CleanPowerSF — a government program that will allow current PG&E electricity customers to purchase alternative, renewable power from Shell Energy North America — is not pretty.
The City is in the final stages of hashing out a $19.5 million deal with Shell that promises local power customers the ability to purchase costlier but cleaner energy from that company instead of PG&E. Residential electricity bills are projected to be between $11.54 and $94.10 more expensive per month.
The program has been fought tooth and nail by PG&E and its union, IBEW Local 1245, which has shown no sign of letting up despite the program’s approval.
“The Board of Supervisor’s [sic] plan to go into business with Shell to create ‘CleanPowerSF’ is a dirty deal that won’t create one new watt of green energy, will raise our power bills and send our local dollars to Shell in Houston,” claims online campaign Stop San Francisco Shell Shock, an effort of Local 1245 to sway public opinion against CleanPowerSF.
In September, the board approved the program in an 8-3 veto-proof vote, but it could be in jeopardy if too few San Franciscans sign up. Shell is due a $15 million payout if the contract is terminated within five years.
As of Monday, the Shell Shock campaign page had collected more than 1,300 supporters on Facebook and another 5,377 on its Change.org petition page.
It’s unclear how heavily the union is backing the effort to sway public opinion. The campaign has not filed financial statements with either the Ethics Commission or the secretary of state, both of which monitor political spending. Local 1245 did not respond to requests for comment.
croberts [at] sfexaminer.com
Read more at the San Francisco Examiner: http://www.sfexaminer.com/local/2013/02/pge-union-ibew-local-1245-continues-fight-against-cleanpowersf#ixzz2LMyPRYhf
Local 1245 Helps Defeat
San Francisco Power Propositions
http://www.ibew.org/articles/02journal/0201/p5_1245.htm
January/February 2002 IBEW Journal
A major effort by Local 1245 members played a role in close victories over two ballot questions that would have municipalized San Franciscos power delivery system.
Im very proud of our members for the effort they made, said Local 1245 Business Manager Perry Zimmerman. They proved that our union will not just stand by when our jobs are threatened.
On Election Day, November 6, voters narrowly rejected Measure I, which would have created a Municipal Utility District to include San Francisco and nearby Brisbane.
But it took a close count of absentee ballots to confirm the defeat of Proposition F to create a San Francisco power authority. Proposition F called for the city takeover of Pacific Gas & Electric, which declared bankruptcy nearly a year ago. Proposition F would also have folded Local 1245 members into city unions.
Local 1245 leaders attributed the come-from-behind victory to the hard work of the members, many of whom would have lost jobs or would have been subject to demotions and lost benefits if the measures were successful.
We were three-to-one behind when we got into it, said Assistant Business Manager Jim McCauley. Were pretty proud of ourselves.
Throughout the campaign against Proposition F, Local 1245 members emphasized that the cost of acquiring PG&E would likely increase customer rates and jeopardize service reliability and worker safety. In addition to a thorough grassroots campaign among union members, the public parts of the campaign included placing billboards around town, appearing at news conferences and radio shows, distributing literature and visiting newspaper editorial boards.
McCauley, who coordinated the Local 1245 effort, successfully persuaded members of central labor councils not to endorse Proposition F and Measure I. McCauley said San Franciscos Local 6 was also a key ally. Local 1245, based in nearby Walnut Creek, used the Local 6 union hall in San Francisco for meetings and grassroots coordination.
They loaned us their hall and anything we needed, they did for us, said McCauley, adding that 1245 members used the Local 6 hall for phone banks and meetings before precinct walking.
For more information:
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/18347-c...
We are 100% volunteer and depend on your participation to sustain our efforts!
Donate
$210.00 donated
in the past month
Get Involved
If you'd like to help with maintaining or developing the website, contact us.
Publish
Publish your stories and upcoming events on Indybay.
Topics
More
Search Indybay's Archives
Advanced Search
►
▼
IMC Network
http://www.sfexaminer.com/sanfrancisco/cleanpowersf-needs-rates-to-be-set-to-begin/Content?oid=2563002
CleanPowerSF needs rates to be set to begin
By Tom Ammiano
• CleanPowerSF's partnership with Shell would tap energy from carbon-neutral, union-produced sources throughout California.
I often tell people it's important to speak truth to power. Today I want to speak truth about power.
Hunter Stern's recent opinion article in The San Francisco Examiner about CleanPowerSF and the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission badly needs some truth. It's the sort of thing you might have thought came from PG&E. Stern represents the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 1245 which, though he didn't mention it, represents PG&E workers.
Stern's mistakes — let's call them mistakes — begin in his very first paragraph, where he says the SFPUC "appropriately rejected" a contract with Shell Energy. That is wrong.
The SFPUC already has approved a framework for working with Shell Energy. What the SFPUC dropped the ball on was setting rates for CleanPowerSF, which would allow the process to go forward as originally intended. Not doing so is a convenient way to try to monkey-wrench a program that San Franciscans badly want and the Board of Supervisors approved. And that the environment needs.
CleanPowerSF was something I worked to create when I was on the Board of Supervisors, before San Franciscans elected me to represent them in Sacramento.
Today, San Francisco can move into the era of clean power, with a greenhouse gas-free source. All we need is for the SFPUC to set those rates. Instead, they looked at their shoes and did nothing. If they were getting the kind of advice Stern is providing, it's not surprising that they were confused.
Stern is also wrong about the source of that energy. Shell has committed, in a letter to the SFPUC, to provide all the energy from "a carbon-neutral energy supply" — all from within California, all produced with union labor.
While he pooh-poohs renewable energy credits used in the process, the reality is that they represent verifiable, renewable power sources such as solar panels and wind turbines. That is renewable energy. Meanwhile, I'm told PG&E failed to even meet the 20 percent state minimum for renewable energy from 2010-12.
He also throws stones at the Local Agency Formation Commission, because it is paid to work toward the clean-energy future. As a past chairman of LAFCO, I can tell you it's not just an administrative fee. It is the LAFCO staff that has been working to make sure the Shell Energy contract would get us off on the right foot to making San Francisco energy independent while reducing greenhouse gases.
With union-operated facilities, as I said before.
He's wrong on the bond issue, too. The bonds approved when I was on the Board of Supervisors could provide much more than the $100 million in energy infrastructure Stern speaks about in just the first phase of build-out. Paying off those bonds is simple, once we get CleanPowerSF rolling along.
So PG&E needs to stop acting like the rate structure is something electrified and deadly to touch. It's what we need to get to a powerful, clean future.
Tom Ammiano is a state assemblyman whose 17th District covers San Francisco