McKenna Aiello | Uptown News
Dozens gathered on Friday, May 30, in front of Assembly Speaker Toni Atkins (D-San Diego) office to protest her vote in favor of AB 2145, a bill protesters say would limit the ability of San Diego and other municipalities to provide an alternative, renewable-energy utility service to residents.
The bill addresses the way Community Choice Aggregation programs (CCAs) are regulated in California. CCAs are resident-run utility providers, which are often favored for their ability to rely more heavily on renewable energy — often at a slightly higher rate — and to provide an alternative to for-profit utility companies that often monopolize a region. Currently, when a CCA is established, residents must opt out of it if they wish to remain with their existing utility company, such as SDG&E in San Diego. The Assembly Bill would require residents to opt in, rather than opt out, which opponents of the bill claim would effectively render CCAs powerless against the utility giants they compete against for customers.
“What you would be doing essentially is telling a nonprofit they would have to do a massive marketing campaign against a for-profit monopoly to try to get some of the market share,” said Masada Disenhouse, a representative from environmental group San Diego 350. “It’s just impractical.”
But Atkins said that instead of denying customers an alternative to monopolistic utility services, AB 2145 would provide a transparent way for utility customers to fairly weigh their options on an issue she believes most are actuallyw uneducated on. Indeed, the bill also increases the amount of reporting CCAs are required to do, especially in regard to the source of the energy provided.
According to an Assembly Committee analysis of the bill, a recent survey performed in the City of Richmond found that nearly 75 percent of residents had no knowledge they were already enrolled in a CCA program, believing Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) was still their utility service provider.
“Data suggest that most residents involved in these programs are not well-informed as to who is supplying their power,” Atkins stated in a public letter defending her vote on AB 2145. “AB 2145 would ensure that consumers have a choice in where they get their energy.”
Opponents of the bill disagree, saying their right to choice is exactly what AB 2145 would be in violation of as they chanted, “How do you spell corporate greed? S-D-G-E!”
And although there are only two established CCA programs in California, climate change activist Jack Shu said this bill could shut down something well on its way to creating a serious movement towards environmental action.
“There are ways for us to economically come up with systems so I don’t have to go to SDG&E,” Shu said. “Whenever we come up with a system that economically helps communities, the corporations get in there and find ways to block us of off.”
Will Shuck, communications director in Atkins’s office, said it is too early to speculate on the success of CCA’s given that so few currently exist in California.
“California’s sustainable energy future is going to require a lot of pieces,” Shuck said. “CCAs will play some kind of role, but in the 12 years since they enacted that law, there’s only two, and one of them has only been up for about a month. So I’m not sure that as we push toward the clean-air goals and greenhouse-gas goals, how exactly that piece is going to fit in.”
Two weeks prior, the City Council’s Environment Committee voted to recommend that the City Council pass a resolution opposing AB 2145. The proposed resolution is on the June 10 City Council agenda. And although Mayor Kevin Faulconer has not taken an official position on the issue, he has voiced his support for solar energy and $12 million in additional revenue to move the proposed Climate Action Plan forward, which, in its latest draft, incorporates CCAs as a possible means to help reach the City’s projected emissions-reduction goals.
“The Climate Action Plan is based in large part on our ability to have community choice aggregation,” Disenhouse said. “Electricity generation is one of our biggest sources of emissions and if we cannot change how we are producing energy to renewables, we are not going to be able to reach those goals.”
Some picketers were initially surprised to learn of the Speaker’s support for the bill given her record on environmental issue, but they later pointed to two separate $10,000 donations made on May 5 from California utility providers Sempra Energy and PG&E weeks prior to the Assembly’s vote on AB 2145 as a swaying factor in Atkins’s decision.
“I was shocked,” protester Dwain Deets said of Atkins’s vote. “She’s got a lot on her plate and I think this one snuck through. Or she might know, and the influence from utility companies who want the ‘business as usual’ approach might have influenced her more.”
Shuck said there is “absolutely no connection whatsoever” between the utility donations and the Speaker’s vote. Atkins also received a $10,000 contribution from California Solar Energy Industries before the Assembly’s vote, an association aimed to strengthen California’s solar market.
Despite protest from opponents, Atkins remains firm in her support of AB 2145, stating that by simply voting down the bill in the Assembly, legislators would have lost the opportunity to further discuss the concerns she as well as the opponents of AB 2145 both share.
“CCAs can be an important part of California’s energy picture, but there are significant issues that need to be addressed. I will continue to work with [the office of Assemblymember Steven Bradford, the bill’s author] to address the concerns expressed by opponents of AB 2145,” Atkins said.
“We need to fight this,” Shu said. “The corporate corporations have millions of dollars, which is essentially buying our legislators. Our legislators need to stop this process of just listening to the money. We need legislators to respond to human and community needs that work for the people.”
AB 2145 is on the agenda for the Senate Energy Committee on June 23.
