[Sustain] PRESS RELEASE: Clean Energy Groups Insist CA Governor Discipline Utilities Commission

[Eric Brooks]

Californians for Energy Choice
1104 Polk Street, Suite 225
San Francisco, CA  94109

PRESS RELEASE

For Immediate Release:  June 1, 2016

Contact:  Eric Brooks, Californians for Energy Choice, 415-756-8844

During 7th International Clean Energy Ministerial, Advocates Insist CA 
Governor Brown Stop Utilities Commission Attacks On Community Based 
Clean Energy

San Francisco, CA, June 1, 2016 – Today, at the opening of the 7th 
international Clean Energy Ministerial being held in San Francisco, 
community and clean energy advocates urged California Governor Jerry 
Brown (who will speak at the ministerial on June 2nd) to demand that his 
appointed California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) end its attacks 
on community based clean energy, and reverse its biased support of 
fossil fuel based monopoly electrical utilities.

The ministerial is being convened by 23 countries (including the U.S., 
China, Brazil, and Saudi Arabia) and the European Commission, to discuss 
concrete actions to implement climate agreements reached in Paris, France.*

Environmental and community groups decried the fact that Michael Picker, 
Brown’s recently appointed CPUC President, has promoted skewed rules 
strongly favoring a corporate sponsor of the ministerial, Pacific Gas & 
Electric (PG&E).** PG&E is a fossil fuel based monopoly electricity 
provider that has spent tens of millions of dollars over the last two 
decades pushing for ballot measures, legislation, and CPUC decisions, 
that attack community based clean energy programs which are competing 
with PG&E and other fossil fuel energy providers.

In a March 16, 2016, “Fireside Chat” interview with Greentech Media, 
President Picker disparaged California’s emerging not-for-profit 
municipal Community Choice energy programs, which are providing a 
cleaner and price competitive energy alternative to monopoly utilities 
like PG&E. Picker misleadingly dismissed the Community Choice 
alternative as “forced collectivization” when by law, all Community 
Choice programs allow customers to freely choose between their current 
monopoly utility and the new alternative.***

Community Choice programs are currently providing a cleaner, less 
expensive electricity supply to California residents in Marin, Sonoma, 
Napa, and Contra Costa counties, and in the cities of San Francisco and 
Lancaster; with scores of other California communities lining up to 
follow suit.

Ed Mainland of Californians for Energy Choice, which advocates statewide 
for Community Choice, said, “With a majority of California’s monopoly 
utility electricity customers now poised to adopt cleaner and less 
expensive Community Choice programs, it is an outrage that President 
Picker is using reactionary rhetoric to attack these programs, and that 
he has led the CPUC to enact policies that force unfair anti-competitive 
fees and regulations on both Community Choice and solar panel owners. We 
insist in the strongest possible terms that Governor Brown take 
immediate action to discipline President Picker and the CPUC. The 
Governor must reaffirm Community Choice as a top priority for 
California’s low carbon energy transition and demand that the CPUC start 
serving a true clean energy future, not the interests of polluting 
energy monopolies entrenched in the past.”

Speaking on behalf of 350 San Francisco, an organization working to 
reduce greenhouse gas emissions and promote clean energy solutions, Sara 
Greenwald said, “Our organization supports Community Choice, both 
locally and statewide, as a crucial part of freeing us from 
climate-destructive fossil fuels. PG&E is a monopoly utility that relies 
heavily on fossil fuel based electricity generation and has spent 
millions of dollars opposing Community Choice because it might reduce 
PG&E profits. Governor Brown appointed the members of the CPUC as well 
as President Picker; we therefore call on the Governor to direct them to 
use their regulatory authority to strongly encourage community based 
clean energy instead of blocking it.”

References

* http://www.cleanenergyministerial.org/Events/CEM7

** 
http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2015/12/17/cpuc-approves-fee-hike-for-opting-out-of-pge-service

http://www.desertsun.com/story/tech/science/energy/2015/07/01/last-minute-drama-major-electricity-rate-changes/29603131

*** California’s Distributed Energy Future, Fireside Chat, March 16, 
2016: 10:32 to 13:10 at 
http://www.greentechmedia.com/multimedia/view/fireside-chat

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-- 

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

Che Guevara
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