California Lawmakers Scramble to Pass Handful of Key Energy Bills
Touting his environmental credentials on the campaign trail, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vowed to accelerate utilities' use of clean energy so that 20 percent of their power comes from renewable sources by 2010 — seven years sooner than current law requires.
Touting his environmental credentials on the campaign trail, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vowed to accelerate utilities' use of clean energy so that 20 percent of their power comes from renewable sources by 2010 — seven years sooner than current law requires, The San Jose Mercury News reported.
So state Sen. Byron Sher, D-San Jose, who wrote the current law, put that campaign promise into a bill this year: SB 1478.
That legislation is now among a handful of key energy bills that lawmakers are scrambling this week to pass and put on the governor's desk before the legislative session ends. Hearings on all the bills are scheduled for today, though final votes probably will be Friday, when lawmakers hope to adjourn so Republicans can attend their national convention in New York.
Schwarzenegger has taken no position on Sher's bill so far, but environmental groups are hopeful it will pass the Legislature and win the Republican governor's signature.
Utilities generally agree with the idea, but have quibbled with the details.
Pacific Gas & Electric, for instance, wants public utilities in cities such as Santa Clara, Palo Alto, Sacramento and Los Angeles to be held to the same standard. Current law and the bill exempt them.
Of California's three major investor-owned utilities affected by the bill, only San Diego Gas & Electric would have difficulty meeting the goal. SDG&E currently receives just 1.8 percent of its power from renewable sources, according to legislative analysts.
PG&E gets 12 percent of its power from renewable sources and Southern California Edison gets 17 percent, legislative analysts said.
Situated at the southern end of the state, SDG&E doesn't have access to the hydroelectric power available to the other utilities, or enough transmission-line capacity to tap renewable energy outside its service area.
So to make up for that disadvantage, the bill proposes a ``renewable energy credits'' program. SDG&E could buy credits for electricity from a Northern California wind-power generator, for example, while the energy itself is delivered to another utility.
Similar programs already are in place in Massachusetts and Texas, and also have been used in programs to reduce acid rain and smog from power plants.
Two bills aimed at promoting solar-power use in California also are scheduled for hearings today. One, SB 199 by Sen. Kevin Murray, D-Culver City, incorporates Schwarzenegger's proposal last week to fulfill a campaign vow and get more new homes built with solar power.
Sen. Debra Bowen, D-Redondo Beach, has a competing solar bill, SB 118, that uses different funding to avoid a possible rate increase -- unused money set aside to pay customers who agree to have service interrupted when power supplies are dangerously low.
Bowen's bill would apply to commercial as well as residential property, and it requires passage of an Assembly bill that sets a regulatory framework for California's electricity system.
That bill, AB 2006 by Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez, D-Los Angeles, could be voted on in the Senate today.
Nuñez's bill is backed by consumer advocates who favor a retreat from the market-based deregulated system that imploded in a costly crisis three years ago. Private power generators such as San Jose-based Calpine and business groups oppose it as a return to expensive monopoly utility power.
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