“where PG&E has profoundly offended its customers…those are natural candidates for somebody with a better idea” –Former Energy Commissioner John Geesman, Marin Independent Journal, 6/9/10

Just as the press declared its own obituary premature by providing statewide, top-to-bottom, vigorous & determining coverage of the truth behind Prop 16 in the lead-up to Tuesday’s election, so you can see emerging coverage of what 16’s flame-out may predict for public power and community choice going forward.

Mark Toney, director of The Utility Reform Network, is quoted by Marin IJ journalist Rick Halstead as saying, “Far more people will have heard of community choice and public power than ever heard of it before and some of those people are going to want it.”

Halstead also quotes John Geesman, Former Energy Commissioner and author of the always incisive and gratifying (though impossibly URL’d) Prop 16 blog: “Geesman said enterprising advocates for community choice aggregation and municipal utility models will be able to ‘go through these election results with a fine-tooth comb and cherry pick.

“Because there are some communities where PG&E has profoundly offended its customers, and those are natural candidates for somebody with a better idea,’ Geesman said.”

I can attest that Halstead sat taking close notes through a grinding number of board and council meetings in Marin through its lengthy ascension. He wrote careful, often critical but accurate accounts as Marin Clean Energy lurched its way through one PG&E firing zone after another toward its May 7th launch date this year. The guy shows up–he knows this story. For the full June 9th article, click here. (June 9, 2010; Richard Halstead, Marin Independent Journal)

What’s next? Here’s next, from the Sonoma County’s Press Democrat, where Ann Hancock and Dick Dowd lay out clear next steps for communities around the state (beginning with San Francisco, then Sonoma, then the rumored 9 other communities closely examining Marin Clean Energy’s model) looking at their own local clean energy options in the aftermath of Prop 16:

“David beat Goliath in the Proposition 16 battle just waged at the ballot, despite being outspent 500 to 1.

Sonoma County voters rejected PG&E’s initiative by 66 percent, signaling this community’s readiness for bolder steps toward energy independence. Leading up to the vote, the county and all Sonoma cities except Windsor passed resolutions opposing Proposition 16.

But it’s not enough to be against something. The need for local action intensifies with each national and state setback. The gulf oil spill, stalled federal climate legislation, PG&E’s failure to meet the state-mandated renewable target and increasing attacks on California’s climate protection laws underscore this point.

Additionally, PG&E seeks authorization to raise rates by $4.6 billion over the next three years. Its centralized, mega-project model relies on exorbitant transmission costs and a bureaucratic maze of permitting requirements. Ratepayers bear the cost for PG&E’s financial exploits — its CEO’s $10.6 million annual salary, shareholder demands, old and projected debts, boondoggles such as the $46 million spent on Proposition 16 and the troubled rollout of SmartMeters.

Because Proposition 16 failed, California communities retain a viable alternative to corporate energy utilities like PG&E. State law gives local government the right to pool community purchasing power, decide how much green energy to buy and what rates to charge. This alternative structure, called Community choice aggregation, empowers communities to incentivize property owners to produce solar power to feed into the grid.

Most important, local governments can issue low-interest revenue bonds to build energy facilities that generate green jobs and green power. Bond repayment occurs through our energy bills, similar to the way we repay the debt PG&E incurred to build facilities such as the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant, so government general funds are untouched.

Community choice aggregation does not create giant government bureaucracies. People of Sonoma County will spend the same utility dollars or quite possibly less through this new structure that aligns with our values, not PG&E shareholders’. More dollars will stay in Sonoma County.

Tapping Sonoma County’s rich renewable energy, such as geothermal and solar, will yield enormous benefits. We will generate local jobs during the construction phase and for ongoing operations and maintenance, spurring the economic recovery we want and need. We can enable the switch to electric vehicles by financing batteries charged with locally generated renewable electricity, making them dramatically more affordable. Plus, we can significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Community choice aggregation is the most powerful tool under local control for doing so.

Tough economic times can make us afraid of bold initiatives. Many individuals, business owners and government folk, hurting from the economic downturn, worry about the future. But the Golden Gate Bridge was built during the Great Depression, proving that even during tough times we can rise above our fears and circumstances.

In fact, community power promises to be one of the remedies for our economic woes.

Let’s get going on a rigorous assessment of community power for Sonoma County. We can learn from other states where this model has been proven and from Marin County and other California communities that are blazing the way. We can also learn from Healdsburg and other municipal utilities that provide electricity to 25 percent of Californians with lower rates and greener energy.

Our dependence and reliance on the PG&Es and BPs of the world must end. Sonoma County’s greenhouse gas emissions decreased very little in 2009, despite noble efforts, new programs and policies. Let’s harness the entrepreneurial spirit that birthed Sonoma County’s Energy Independence Program in 2008, now a national model.

The newly formed Friends of Sonoma Clean Power along with a dozen business, government and nonprofit leaders, call for assessing and, if favorable, implementing Community Power for Sonoma County. Let’s realize the potential for generating green jobs and green energy, reducing emissions and maintaining competitive utility rates. We cannot afford to ignore this powerful option any longer. Now is the time to act.”

Dick Dowd is vice president of Pinnacle Homes, a local builder specializing in making existing residences more energy efficient through retrofitting. Ann Hancock directs the Climate Protection Campaign based in Sonoma County.

http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20100610/ARTICLES/100619933/1033/news?Title=Sonoma-County-advocates-push-community-based-power-authority

1. Marin IJ Letters to the Editor– 250 word maximum, E-mail submissions are preferred.

Submit on-line here: opinion@marinij.com as an attached document or in the body of an email.

2. Mill Valley Herald or MarinScope-250 word maximum
Submit on-line here: http://www.marinscope.com/forms/letters/

3. Pacific Sun–Submit letters to letters@pacificsun.com

4. West Marin Citizen- submit to: editor@westmarincitizen.com

5. Pt. Reyes Light- limit 250 words http://www.ptreyeslight.com/letter_editor.shtml

6. San Francisco Chronicle Letters to the Editor- 200 word limit- http://www2.sfgate.com/chronicle/submissions/#1

In teeny tiny letters, in ever more pale ink, you may be able to find the line on those mailers that says something about PacificGas&Electric. Or maybe you left your magnifying glass at home and you can’t find PG&E on there.

Regardless, these 100% PG&E mailers are everywhere, they’re expensive as heck, and they’re clearly meant to scare the pants off us. If we didn’t have brains in our heads, it might be hard to know what to do about it.

First, know that this is a straight out disinformation campaign. These mailers are packed with the same tired ol’ threats PG&E’s Joe Nation has been trotting out in council meetings (rebutted, again and again) since 2008. Some of them are the same threats (again, examined and rejected) used by PG&E to generate fear and confusion around San Joaquin’s CCA in a devastating disinformation campaign down there. As they’ve made clear to their shareholders, PG&E has one motive behind everything they throw at this: STOP the CCAs. Halt the threat to earnings.

It’s faux grassroots on a boardroom budget, with just that one simple goal: shut the competition down. PG&E knows Marin Clean Energy inside out. They know it will succeed, and they know it will compete. If it can just survive PG&E’s onslaught. Why else would PG&E go to these extraordinary measures and $35 million dollar budgets to stop it?

So, back to that trashmail. Maybe you’re more sane, but I am officially UP TO HERE with this torrent of costly PG&E mailers flooding the homes and businesses of my community, telling us how scared to be and what to think.

Here is one Do Something I’m using to offset infuriation:

SEND PG&E’S TRASHMAIL SOMEWHERE CONSTRUCTIVE: The CPUC
1. Pull your PG&E/Commonsense mailers out of the recycling (or out of the bin at the post office–ours was clean & dry!)
2. Stick the mailers in a manila envelope or one of those priority packets at the post office, and address it (below)
3. Jot the short STICKY NOTE VERSION below on yes, a sticky note or notecard to enclose with your mailers
…Or copy & paste the longer LETTER VERSION below and print it as a cover letter to your PG&E mailers packet.

(Are you an email-only type? Copy from below and paste into an email to publicadvisor@cpuc.ca.gov. Use this is subject line: CCSF “Petition to Modify” Rulemaking 03-10-00)

4. If by post, mail to–

Commissioner Nancy Ryan
CA Public Utilities Commission
505 Van Ness Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94102

STICKY NOTE VERSION:

Dear Commissioner Ryan,
Congratulations and welcome to the CPUC! Please take the right first steps toward an honorable legacy. We urgently need expedited action on the CCSF “Petition to Modify” Rulemaking 03-10-003. PG&E’s saturation attacks (see enclosed) on Marin County’s CCA are in blatant violation of state law AB 117. Isn’t this the job of the CPUC? Thank you,

COPY & PASTE LETTER VERSION:

Commissioner Nancy Ryan
CA Public Utilities Commission
505 Van Ness Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94102

RE: CCSF “Petition to Modify” Rulemaking 03-10-003
Urging expedited action in consideration of heavy consumer confusion and the escalation of opt out interference by PG&E in Marin County

Dear Commissioner Ryan,

Congratulations on your successful appointment to the California Public Utilities Commission. You heard about the troubles in Marin in your first minutes “on the bench.” The citizens and ratepayers who have worked years to see the Marin Clean Energy CCA bring choice to our County through a diligent and exhaustive participatory process are appalled, now, at the level of aggressive interference by the incumbent utility against the CCA. This interference, similar to the interference noted in the CCSF Petition to Modify, is in clear violation of the intent of state law AB 117. AB 117 requires the utility to “cooperate fully” with the CCA, and nothing about what we’re experiencing daily in Marin looks like “cooperation.”

The enclosed mailers from PG&E’s deceptively presented front group, Commonsense Marin, are just a sample of what PG&E has been mailing to the households and businesses of Marin County. This level of marketing interference is impossible for any public agency to answer, due to both financial and legal constraints. To any eye, the intent of PG&E’s unconstrained materials is clear. It is to confuse and alarm consumers about Marin Clean Energy.

Please note in particular the cynical use of minute type and singularly pale ink to obscure the fact that Pacific Gas & Electric is underwriting these communications.

Please note as well the misleading blanket invitation to all customers to “opt out,” when only Phase 1 customers are in their opt out period and may do so. The other remaining approximately 80% of users will have to opt out again when the Phase II opt out period begins 13-16 months from now. This unnecessary confusion hurts all parties, and should be stopped.

Finally, with PG&E’s Prop 16 ballot initiative pending June 8, 2010, any delay establishing an expedited temporary injunctive relief process for CCAs is, in effect, a decision. As stated in the CCSF Petition to Modify (pg27), “Irreparable harm could result.” Please act swiftly to protect and enforce the intent of AB 117.

Thank you,
_______________________

So that’s all for this post, big update on PG&E’s $35M Prop 16 to follow.

Warmly, Megan & the MMOB

P.S. PROP 16–If you want some immediate and gratifying elucidation, here’s a 30-min excerpt from the Prop 16 hearing in Sacramento: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zun-xjFWXuo

Here’s a quick and pretty goofy clip Jim Heddle (Ecological Options Network) and I put together on a Sunday afternoon hitting latest Marin Clean Energy highlights. Feel free to grab it to send around if it’s useful enough. I can send the embed code if you don’t know how to pull it from here. Best, Megan

MMOB + Transition + Alliance up for a little Marin Energy push against PG&E?

Hello hello -

So last year (can it be that long ago?), together with the Sustainables, Sierra Club, and the rest of the groups in our hearty Marin Clean Energy alliance—PLUS the West Marin Localization Network now Transition West Marin—we MMOBsters and Alliance and Transition folks were all sweetly successful in helping get Marin Clean Energy through the hurdles to form the Marin Energy Authority.

Now it’s crunch time again. That little post-inaugural “Hope Hiatus” is long past and local action’s really the only daily answer, so….

Marin can KICK ASS on climate, with Marin Energy, but PG&E’s pulling out all stops to quash it here, then close the door on all future efforts toward local power in the state with a ballot initiative, because that’s what monopolies do. Marin’s out in front right now, will be the only jurisdiction in California under contract as a CCA, if this next push goes right. PG&E’s efforts including that stinky initiative on the June 3rd ballot, a lawsuit against the Marin Energy Authority, $30 million dollars (I hear) spent against it so far, and lies–plenty of lies. (One piece of great news is that San Rafael is no longer wobbly, with the recent election of the EXCELLENT Mark Levine to that City Council, joining stalwart Marin Energy supporters Greg Brockbank & Damon Connelly. Also, there has been a somewhat successful complaint filed by Barbara George against PG&E with the CPUC––to prevent them using OUR Public Goods efficiency monies in quid pro quo offer$ to the Novato City Council against joining Marin Energy.)

So the City Councils are being leaned on hard by PG&E to back out in the next 6 weeks, with a calendar of their meetings below. The Marin Energy Authority votes on February 4th to go with the (hold your nose) Shell contract or not.

“Hang tough, Councilmembers!” There is a call out for letter-writing and/or bodies at the City Council meetings. It might also be useful to consider MMOB et al postcards to the members of the CA Public Utilities Commission in SF to rein in PG&Es spending & interference in our local democratic decision-making.

Here is the schedule so far, fyi:

MARIN ENERGY CALENDAR (I pulled details off of www.marinenergyauthority.org)

• ROSS CITY COUNCIL December 10, 7-8pm
  31 Sir Francis Drake Blvd.
• BELVEDERE CITY COUNCIL Monday, December 14, 7-8pm
  City Hall, 450 San Rafael Avenue
• MARIN ENERGY EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE MEETING Wednesday, December 16, 10-11am
  Marin Civic Center, Room 324a
• NOVATO MARIN ENERGY FORUM Wednesday, December 16th, 7-9pm
  Novato Forum on Marin Energy Authority; Novato City Council members attending (www.sustainablenovato.org for more)
  Location: Novato School District Office at 1015 7th Street, Novato
• MILL VALLEY CITY COUNCIL, MARIN ENERGY Monday,January 4th, 7:30-8:30pm
• MARIN ENERGY MONTHLY BOARD MEETING, Thursday, January 7th, 7-9pm
  1 McInnis Parkway, San Rafael
• BELVEDERE CITY COUNCIL MARIN ENERGY, Monday, January 11th, 7:30-8:30pm
  City Hall, 450 San Rafael Ave
• SAUSALITO CITY COUNCIL MARIN ENERGY, Tuesday, January 12th, 7-8pm
  420 Litho Street
• MARIN ENERGY MONTHLY BOARD MEETING: VOTE ON CONTRACT! Thursday, February 4th, 7-9pm
  1 McInnis Parkway, San Rafael

ADDRESSES

CALIFORNIA PUBLIC UTILITIES COMMISSION
505 Van Ness Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94102
415.703.2782
800.848.5580 (Toll Free)

CPUC Commissioners
Michael R. Peevey, President
Dian M. Grueneich
John A. Bohn
Rachelle Chon
Timothy Alan Simon

USEFUL DOCUMENTS FROM MARIN ENERGY AUTHORITY
This powerpoint shows a new-to-me VERY useful slide on the COSTS to the cities to comply with state law AB32 emissions reductions WITH and WITHOUT Marin Energy. Big savings with Marin Energy. Another one shows how Marin Energy blows PG&E out on cost savings over time, and of course, on emissions reduction.

This doc is Marin Energy’s very effective response to the glop put out in Monday’s Grand Jury report on Marin Energy:

MMOB got swept off our feet by Rob Hopkins’ Transition Towns concept back in 07, now known as Transition Initiatives. MMOB hosted workshops and co-sponsored events around Transition, then joined with our many allies in West Marin to form www.transitionwestmarin.org, the 28th “official” Transition Initiative in the States. Jan Markle is doing a wonderful job with that Transition West Marin site — do check it out for photos, video, etc. from our local Transition activities. For more background on Transition, there’s a nice wiki at www.transitiontowns.org, some excellent book and movie resources at Rob Hopkins’ blog www.transitionculture.org; and then buckets of goodness at the United States site www.transitionus.org. A grand thing about Transition is that ANYTHING you do to build community resilience and reduce fossil fuel dependence & emissions counts. Policy changes matter, composting toilets matter, town celebrations & art matter, work against corporate personhood matters, volunteering in the classroom matters, elections matter, getting arrested to stop coal matters, making your own stuff matters. And having a big town turnout for 350.org day matters too!

Transition West Marin & Friends sit for 350.org (photo by Art Rogers)

Kris & Megan with MMOB’s Solar-Paneled Tea Trolley

MMOB’s Thank You banner for Transition Bo-Stin’s splendid bike path celebration gets signed by all the kids!

Then, ever since Nicasio rancher John Wick spoke up during our “Exploring Transition in West Marin” workshop, we’ve been hogwild for his Marin Carbon Project, and are hosting public awareness events in its support. Check it out at www.marincarbonproject.org. The basics are this: a 3-year study of how grazing lands can be better managed to radically accelerate their CO2 sequestration capacity is turning out early results that blow the doors off expectations. For some rough video from film crew EON.org, watch John Wick on this topic:

Finally, MMOBsters Gail, Bernie & Lisa are active on the Marin Clean Energy front, which is in the contract phase and under the usual big money attacks from PG&E. What are YOU up to? Email megan@themmob.org with any goodies.