The Marin Energy Authority this week locked in the wholesale price that it will pay Shell Energy North America over the next five years for the electricity that it will sell to its Marin customers.
At the price Shell is charging, the authority will be able to fulfill it promise to offer customers electricity that comes from 25 percent renewable sources for the same amount that Pacific Gas and Electric Co. is currently charging, said Dawn Weisz, the authority's interim director
To understand what's wrong with California's initiative process, all you need to do is look at Proposition 16 on the June 8 ballot. This outrageous measure is funded by more than $25 million from PG&E, and its sole purpose is to protect PG&E profits.
Richard Halstead, Marin IJ
The Marin Board of Supervisors on Tuesday rejected most of the findings contained in a civil grand jury report that recommended pulling the plug on the Marin Clean Energy initiative.
The initiative, a program of the Marin Energy Authority, aims at reducing greenhouse gases by offering Marin residents the opportunity to purchase electricity generated from a higher percentage of renewable sources than offered by Pacific Gas and Electric Co.
The CSAC Board of Directors voted today to oppose Prop. 16, the initiative that would limit local government’s ability to expand local energy programs. While the board was presented with both sides of the argument, their decision was relatively quick and easy. CSAC’s Agriculture & Natural Resources Policy Committee and Executive Committee had both already recommended an “oppose” position.
It was an unhappy anniversary that passed without public fanfare. But nine years ago last week, Pacific Gas & Electric Co., ravaged by the energy crisis, plunged into bankruptcy.
Read more: http://www.sacbee.com/2010/04/11/2668460/dan-morain-pge-flips-the-switch.html#ixzz0kttFHqCa
The lead sentence in last Friday's San Francisco Chroniclearticle (headline: "PG&E Must Stop Threats To Public Power Agencies") hints at the dilemma Peter Darbee's political recklessness has created for his company and its heretofore guardian angels, the California Public Utilities Commission:
California energy regulators delivered a rare rebuke to Pacific Gas and Electric Co. on Thursday, banning some of thehardball tactics the utility has used in its efforts to derail Marin County's new public power agency.
Sacramento-area voters, responding to a Sacramento Bee-led crusade, voted in 1923 to divorce themselves from On Monday night the Belvedere City Council voted 4-1 in favor of moving the City to 100% Deep Green with Marin Clean Energy. In doing so, the Council made a statement that this is an important issue. Belvedere became the second municipality in Marin to go 100% Deep Green as part of its ratepayer choice.
On average, SMUD rates are nearly 30% lower than PG&E – in the medium commercial rate structure, SMUD rates are nearly 36% lower
SMUD has guaranteed an immediate 2% rate reduction during the time that the acquisition costs are recovered – anticipated to be five to ten years
Ed Mainland -
I was chatting with a nice Marin lady at Joe Nation's PG&E-funded "Common Sense Coalition" February 27. She doesn't believe all this global warming stuff. "There's always been carbon dioxide in the air," she said. She knows what she knows and doesn't want to know more.
Peter Darbee's Dog of an Initiative: 3 Tapeworms Eating Away at the Internal Logic of Prop. 16
On February 25, I had the privilege of testifying on Proposition 16 before the joint hearing of the California Senate Energy, Utilities and Telecommunications Committee and the California Assembly Utilities and Commerce Committee. This is what I said:
The Larkspur City Council on Wednesday approved a resolution opposing Proposition 16, the Pacific Gas and Electric Co.-sponsored initiative on the June 8 ballot that would require a public vote on municipal energy projects.
Pacific Gas and Electric Co. will be prohibited from offering people a way out of the Marin's "clean energy" plan until the Marin Energy Authority itself initiates its own opt-out process and provides information about its rates, terms and conditions to customers, the state Public Utilities Commission ruled Thursday.
SF Chronicle Friday, April 9, 2010 California energy regulators delivered a rare rebuke to Pacific Gas and Electric Co. on Thursday, banning some of the hardball tactics the utility has used in its efforts to derail Marin County's new public power agency. Although the move by the California Public Utilities Commission didn't go as far as some PG&E critics wanted, it could have great significance as other communities - most notably, San Francisco - try to enter the electricity business.
PG&E's Prop 16: Stalking Horse for Monopoly's Higher Rates?
Written by Ed Mainland
Monday, 29 March 2010 10:10
Sustaining Marin,
PG&E is spending a cool $35 million from ratepayers' pockets to fool voters into thinking Prop 16 is about "taxpayers' right to vote". It's not about anybody's right to vote. And it's not about taxes. Prop 16 is actually about reducing voters' options and taking away rights already theirs. And entrenching PG&E's monopoly. And paving the way to higher rates by amending the state constitution.
PG&E's CEO Peter Darbee has admitted as much. At an investor's conference: he said Prop 16 is intended to "diminish" voters options. That's so because PG&E then only has to spend the amount of money it will take to convince 1/3 of the voters in any community to vote against their own best interests. Requiring a 2/3 majority would make it extremely difficult for any city or county to create a public utility or become a community choice aggregator or even expand a municipal electricity district.
In this excerpt from the March 23, 2010 California Public Utilities Commission Hearing on Prop 16, former Energy Commissioner John Geesman ( http://greenenergywar.com/ ) gives his critique of PG&E's proposed constitutional amendment and asks, "Where is Peter A. Darbee, Chairman, CEO and President of the PG&E Corporation?" Why isn't he appearing before the CPUC to explain his company's rationale for an anti-democratic measure designed to mislead voters, use a 'supermajority' rule ( which means a minority really rules) to kill local clean energy projects like those ready to go live in Marin County and San Francisco, and enshrine PG&E's energy monopoly permanently in California's constitution?