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power
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URGENT
Fr:
Paul Fenn
Dt:
Monday June 18, 2001
ASSEMBLY
BILL 9 (renumbered from AB48x) The
Community Choice bill will be heard by the Senate Utilities committee on this
Tuesday, June 19. It recently passed the Assembly with only one vote opposed
but is vulnerable to hostile amendments in the senate committee and we need
help today.
Call,
fax, email key utility committee senators
to
oppose two amendments (1) allowing utilities to impose unreasonable switching
fees and (2) preserving
utility monopoly of wasted state conservation funds:
·
Utilities
are fighting to maintain control of the state’s conservation funds, and do not want cities eligible to
administer the funds contributed by their residents and businesses directly.
·
Utilities
are also seeking to charge communities unreasonable fees for switching that will add up to millions of dollars
for some communities, under what is called “direct access” rules. These rules
are unjust and unreasonable and are designed to prevent communities from doing
Community Choice.
Most
importantly call Senate President Pro Tem Senator John Burton (SF-Marin) has a
critical role to play with the Senate Chairwoman Debra Bowen’s (from
Edison’s LA) treatment of the bill in committee. Call or fax Senator Burton,
then Senator Bowen: contacts are at bottom.
If you are
from the Palo Alto area, call Byron Sher from Palo Alto and San
Mateo County. Sher is key because he may push the hostile amendments to
maintain utility control of the energy efficiency funds, so he needs to hear
local voices asking him not to. Mr. Sher’s contacts are below.
If you
live in or near Redondo
Beach, Los Angeles, San Jose, Inglewood, San Mateo, Culver City, Palm Desert,
Poway, Van Nuys, San Juan Capistrano, Carlsbad, South Orange County, North San
Diego County and their surrounds, you have a state senator sitting on the
Senate Committee that will vote on AB9XX:
Finally, San
Franciscans, we are unclear on Jackie Speier’s position on the bill,
but if you have any connections to the senator from San Francisco/San Mateo,
give her a call. Other senators on the committee are listed below, but focus
your efforts on the local area delegation and the committee chair.
“call them to say what?”
(1)
To oppose electric utility amendments to the Community Choice bill that would
protect the utilities’ widely criticized monopoly control of state energy
efficiency and conservation funds against efforts of local governments to administer
those funds directly in competitive bidding contests. Cities should not have to
compete with suppliers when we want the suppliers to bid amongst themselves for
our business. And the customers should control their demand, not any supplier,
including the wires companies that are lobbying to keep these funds under their
control.
(2) to
oppose similarly hostile amendments that would impose artificially high exit
fees and re-enter fees
on consumers that participate in Community Choice programs. Fees that
were designed for individual customers switching suppliers and require manual
work to perform are being charged for electronic transfers of millions of
customers at once that are not. Direct Access Rules for switching is unfair and
unreasonable. In Ohio the utilities tried to get $2.5 million for a simple data
transfer that actually cost very little. This is often referred to as putting
Community Choice’s exit and re-entrance “under direct access rules.” Our
position: all switching fees must be cost based and demonstrated before the
Public Utilities Commission before it will be paid by the community.
(1) Conservation
Funds
The utilities
are saying that communities should have to compete with developers for the
funds "like anyone else," but we say that the community represents
demand, not supply, and the customer should not have to compete with the
supplier, particularly when we want the developers to compete as suppliers for
our business, not against us. Demand should not have to compete with supply.
This is another conflict of interest. It is time to remove conservation moneys
from monopoly control and into local community control.
The
basic issue is that the utilities currently control the energy efficiency
funds, and have been widely criticized for sitting on them. The simple conflict
of interest is that the utilities are still gross-revenue and cost based in
their return on investment, so that conservation is a money loser; it is a case
of the fox guarding the chicken coop.
a. Evidence of
Waste of Utility Control of Funds
Historically,
the Utilities got "shareholder incentives" approved annually by the
PUC 10 years ago, meaning they got profits for every kwh saved. Up through 1997
they got 30% profits on their programs mostly for bloated PR programs, a
scandal which led to it being reduced to 7% last year, but it remains
vulnerable to gaming and remains a million dollar adder that would not be there
for publicly administered (competitively bid) Community Choice programs.
b. The current system of Utility control has been widely criticized and has
all the accoutrements of a laundering system.
Utility-administered
programs are notoriously horrible. An example of how these moneys are
systematically wasted by utilities is the "Market Transformation"
program which gave away money to appliance manufacturers to promote more
efficient appliances, but had no way to measure results, and none have ever
appeared. From untraceable moneys spent
on the brochure they send with the bill to boondoggles with contractors, and
wholesale abuse such as the baseball ticket scandal are but chapters in the history
of utility conservation politics.
The
latest scandal appeared over the Spring when it was revealed that the state's
utilities have failed to spend $70 million last year from a $250 million
budget, meaning that conservation was left undone in the middle of an energy
crisis. Meanwhile, utility lawyers also claimed at the PUC that they had run out
of state rebate moneys, and threatened that their program would be discontinued
unless they were granted new ratepayer contributed moneys authorized by from
the latest authorization bill from senator Byron Sher. The utilities are able
to make threatening claims without full disclosures of the use of the funds. There
is a big dispute over whether they should get the money at all, and we believe
they should not.
(2)
Oppose Direct Access Switching Fees
Look out
for efforts to attach punitive switching fees on communities for doing
Community Choice or on consumers for switching back to default service. This
could be used to frighten people from participating.
In Ohio, this has been a problem. When the Cleveland area chose Green Mountain
Energy to over the coal and nuclear power they were formerly getting through
default service, former monopoly utility FirstEnergy absurdly claimed they had
to transfer each account individually, and attempted to impose a the switching
fee charged to individual customers switching under direct access (where there
is manual work on the individual account). When multiplied by the 450,000
residents and businesses participating, this amounted to $2.5 million for a
very simple data dump that should cost very little. You should see to it that
exit fees are not imposed on California consumers in Community Choice
programs..
General Facts about
Community Choice bill AB9
In Edison’s
Los Angeles, a community of half a million live within the jurisdiction of
the Southern California Cities Joint Powers Consortium, Executive
Director and former two time mayor Albert Vera has been a long time
advocate of Community Choice, is eager to implement Community Choice once it
becomes law, and as pioneer of municipal conservation is eager to put the state
energy efficiency funds to work in the area cities of his Joint Powers Agency.
Marin County Board President Hal Brown is working
with local officials Frank Egger and Lew Tremain of Fairfax and a strong
network of community activists to prepare to implement Community Choice. The
conservation funds are key to making it work.
Local Power
is discussing the development of wind and solar power on the Berkeley Pier
and the Port of Oakland, both in conjunction with a Community Choice
implementation. The East Bay Municipal Utility District has expressed
some interest in playing an umbrella role for municipalities in the east bay
such as Oakland and Berkeley.
We are also
discussing the possibility of large scale solar initiatives in conjunction with
San Francisco Board President Tom Ammiano’s solar plant in Richmond,
Hercules, and other East Bay Cities.
SENATE UTILITY COMMITTEE CONTACTS
For AB9 (was AB48x), Hearing Tuesday June 19
SENATE
LEADERSHIP ON ISSUE
Senator
Debra Bowen
COMMITTEE
CHAIR
Redondo
Beach area
Capitol:
State
Capitol, Room 4040
Sacramento, CA 95814
(916) 445-5953
Fax: (916) 323-6056
senator.bowen@sen.ca.gov
or to
her committee staff: (Lawrence Lingbloom)
tel (916)
445-9764,
FAX (916) 445-1389
District Office if you are from the area:
2512
Artesia Blvd., #200
Redondo Beach, CA 90278
(310) 318-6994
Fax: (310) 318-6733
senator.bowen@sen.ca.gov
2.
Senate President Pro Tem, John Burton
D-San
Francisco
Senate District 03
Capitol Office:
State
Capitol Room 205
Sacramento, CA 95814
Phone: (916) 445-1412
Fax
916 445 4722
San
Francisco Office
455 Golden
Gate Ave.
Suite 14800
San Francisco, CA 94102
Phone: (415) 557-1300
Marin County Office
3501 Civic
Center
Room 425
San Rafael, CA 94903
Phone: (415) 479-6612
3.
Senator Byron Sher
Possible
sponsor of hostile amendment to protect utility control of energy efficiency
funds….
Stanford,
San Mateo County CA
D-Stanford
Senate District 11
District
Office
State
Capitol, Room 2082
Sacramento, CA 95814
(916) 445-6747
Fax (916) 323-4529
District Office:
In San Mateo County use:
Tel (650)364-2080
Fax (650)364-2102
Northern California
senators include:
Senator
John Burton (see above)
Who
is senate president pro tem
Senator
Jackie Speier
San Francisco, San Mateo
D-San
Francisco/
San Mateo
Senate District 08
District Office
State Capitol, Room 2032
Sacramento, CA 95814
(916) 445-0503
Fax (916) 327-2186
senator.speier@sen.ca.gov
San
Francisco office
455 Golden
Gate Avenue,
Suite 14200
San Francisco, CA 94102
ph 415-557-7857
fax 415-557-7864
San Mateo Office
400 South El Camino Real,
Suite 630
San Mateo, CA 94402
ph 650-340-8840
fax 650-340-1661
5.
Senator John Vasconcellos
San Jose
D-San Jose
Senate District 13
Capitol Office:
State Capitol, Room 5108
Sacramento, CA 95814
(916) 445-9740
Fax (916) 324-0283
District Office
100 Paseo de San Antonio, Suite 209
San Jose, CA 95113 (408) 286-8318
Fax (408) 286-2338
Senator
Debra Bowen
D-Redondo
Beach
See
Above, if you are from her area call or fax her District Office.
6.
Senator Richard Alarcon
San
Fernando Valley, Van Nuys
Majority Whip
D-San Fernando Valley
Senate District 20
Capitol
Office:
State
Capitol, Room 4035
Sacramento, CA 95814
(916) 445-7928
Fax (916) 324-6645
District
Office
6150 Van
Nuys Blvd., #400
Van Nuys, CA 91401
(818) 901-5588
Fax (818) 901-5562
7. Senator Bill Morrow (Vice
Chair)
North San
Diego County, South Orange County
Capital Office:
State Capitol, room 4048
Sacramento, CA 95814
Phone: (916) 445-3731
Fax: (949) 489-8354
Carlsbad Office:
2755 Jefferson St., #101 Carlsbad, CA 92008
Phone: (760) 434-7930 Fax: (760) 434-8223 END
8.
Senator Jim Battin
Palm
Desert, Poway
(760)
568-0408Phone:
(858)
675-8211
Fax:
(760) 568-1501
9.
Senator Kevin Murray
D-Los
Angeles around Culver City
Senate
District 26
Capitol
Office:
State
Capitol, Room 4082
Sacramento, CA 95814
(916) 445-8800
Fax (916) 445-8899
District Office:
600 Corporate Pointe, #1020
Culver City, CA 90230
(310) 641-4391
Fax (310) 641-4395
10.
Senator Edward Vincent
Los Angeles, Inglewood area
D-Los Angeles
Senate District 25
District Office
State Capitol, Room 5052
Sacramento, CA 95814
(916) 445-2104
Fax (916) 445-3712
District Office:
1 Manchester Blvd., #600
Inglewood, CA 90301
(310) 412-0393
Fax (310) 412-0996