Wildfires Burning in California’s Ballot Box

At times of presidential elections—particularly groundbreaking elections like the most recent one—we can lose sight of the hundreds of initiatives that gain enough support to be admitted onto state ballot papers.  But the significance of ballot initiatives should not be underestimated:  they often turn into state law, and even when they fail can act as a measure of popular opinion on a number of issues.  In Massachusetts this year, for example, voters rejected the opportunity to end state income tax while voting to ban greyhound racing in the Bay State.  Californian voters agreed with a proposition not to allow gay marriage and—surprisingly, on the surface—rejected another that would have required state utilities to obtain 50% of their power from renewables by 2025.

Yes, that last one is surprising, considering the leading role California plays in promoting the use of renewables, particularly solar power.  But given its good intent, Proposition 7 attracted a surprising number of opponents, including the League of Conservation Voters, the Environmental Defense Fund, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Union of Concerned Scientists, the Sierra Club, both major political parties and dozens of clean energy companies.  It was also opposed by area utilities, who are not usually to be found making common cause with environmentally focused groups.  Supporting the proposition were the Community Environmental Council (CEC) of Santa Barbara, city and state officials and individual members of other environmental/energy groups like the Rainforest Action Network and the International Solar Energy Society.

Strange opponents and even stranger bedfellows…

The backers of Prop. 7, the ‘Solar and Clean Energy Act of 2008’, characterize many of its elements as ‘carrots’ rather than ‘sticks’, and feel that this approach would have led to the fastest and most effective adoption of significant levels of renewables.  These elements would have included:

• A feed-in tariff for all renewable installations, based on the market price;
• Shifting responsibility for computing the market price to the California Energy Commission and requiring it to adjust this price to reflect the special benefits of renewables;
• Allowing the Public Utilities Commission to consider contracts for renewables costing up to 10% more than the market price.

Prop. 7 would also have eliminated the existing $25 million cap on penalties for utilities not meeting their renewables goals.

But opponents of the measure countered the ‘yes’ campaign with a strong and well-financed campaign of its own.  They complained that Prop. 7 changed the definition of solar projects eligible to contribute to the Renewable Portfolio Standard so as to exclude those smaller than 30MW.  They felt that changes in permitting rules would disadvantage small developers and that the mandate for the PUC to consider higher-than-market-rate contracts would drive up the price of renewables in the state.

It was a bitterly contested fight, with expert authorities weighing in on both sides.  Tam Hunt, Energy Program Director of the Santa Barbara CEC, said: “If California is to make the necessary transition from fossil fuels, we will need the tools provided by Prop. 7.”

But Dan Kalb, policy director for the Union of Concerned Scientists in California, warned that this was a case where the devil was in the details.  “The risk of global warming is too great to play around with poorly drafted initiatives… Prop. 7 gets the solutions wrong, and worse yet it would lock in these problems because it would require a two-thirds vote of the Legislature to fix or amend the measure.”

And in the end that last point was moot, because the voters went with the opponents and voted down the ballot question.  But the question left hanging is what those environmental and clean energy groups who successfully opposed this clean energy measure want to see in its place.  The answer may be the one that came from Governor Schwarzenegger’s office on November 17th.  On that day the governor signed an executive order imposing a 33% renewable portfolio standard by 2020, up from its current figure of 12%.  Says Sue Kateley of the California chapter of the Solar Energy Industries Association:  “We’re very excited about the new legislation.  It doesn’t discriminate against distributed generation, and it seeks to resolve problems of transmission capacity and land use that have always dogged large-scale solar development.”

And perhaps everyone can get together on this one.