[Sustain] Press Release: CA Bill Attacking Local Energy Choice Defeated - AB 2145

[Eric Brooks]

For Immediate Release
August 30, 2014

Contact:

Eric Brooks, 415-756-8844, brookse at igc.org
Woody Hastings, 310-968-2757, woodyhastings at gmail.com

AB-2145 Attack On Local Energy Choice Defeated by Consumer & Clean 
Energy Advocates

In an extraordinary legislative upset, David beat Goliath in Sacramento 
when Senator Darrell Steinberg brought down the gavel this morning at 
3:00 a.m. to close the 2013-14 legislative session, with no vote on 
Assembly Bill 2145. AB 2145, the proposed law aimed at crushing locally 
based clean energy efforts known as Community Choice energy programs in 
California, is officially dead.

The newly emerged statewide coalition, Californians for Energy Choice, 
pushed back the monopoly electrical utilities’ latest attempt to deeply 
undermine competition from these emerging local programs. Previously, 
Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) spent over $46 million in 2010 pushing 
Proposition 16, a ballot measure that would have ended Community Choice 
in California. Voters soundly defeated the measure. Organizers who 
fought against Prop 16, joined with scores of new activists to help form 
the new coalition.

“The monopoly utilities made a huge mistake when they forced us to 
create a coordinated statewide coalition to fight AB 2145. We have now 
educated thousands of people and legislators to the fact that Community 
Choice is the state’s most powerful tool to give communities local 
control over electricity supply, and rapidly build clean energy programs 
that will put Californians back to work, and combat the climate crisis. 
We can now use this new coalition to change the game on energy in 
California,” said Sunnyvale resident Margaret Okuzumi, a key member of 
Californians for Energy Choice.

The defeat of AB 2145 protects the ability of local communities to take 
control of decision-making about their electricity sources. It also 
empowers them to access lower rates by leveraging the joint customer 
buying power and energy market competition that Community Choice makes 
possible. The door is once again wide open for Community Choice to 
flourish in California. Local governments throughout the State now have 
a green light to create successful clean energy-based Community Choice 
programs.

"The defeat of AB 2145 opens the door for everyday ratepayers, 
residents, and businesses to free ourselves from the grip of the Big 
Utility monopolies and their accomplices," said Bruce Wolfe of the 
Haight Ashbury Neighborhood Council and SF Clean Energy Advocates. "It 
is now time for all this corporate monopoly resistance to stop, and for 
emerging Community Choice programs like San Francisco’s CleanPowerSF to 
be implemented immediately.”

Erica Etelson, a San Francisco East Bay activist stated, "I hope PG&E 
and the other utilities finally get the message that Californians want 
clean, affordable, 21st century electricity and won't stand for monopoly 
bullying in Sacramento."

“This is ultimately about energy democracy,” said Al Weinrub, 
coordinator for the Oakland-based Local Clean Energy Alliance. “The 
question is, will the power to decide what kinds of energy we use and 
who benefits from the system, be in the hands of a small group of 
powerful players, as it has been for the past hundred years, or will the 
power be in the hands of the people?”

Californians for Energy Choice thanks the Senate President Pro Tem 
Darryl Steinberg, Minority Leader Bob Huff, and the entire Senate and 
all of its hard-working aides, who saw through the misinformation put 
out by 2145 operatives and helped to defeat the bill.

For more information:

http://no2145.org
https://www.facebook.com/noab2145

###

-- 

"I am not a liberator. Liberators do not exist. The people liberate themselves."

Che Guevara

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