Bernadette Del Chiaro
A key activist at Environment California on why a popular solar power bill was another casualty of p
Suddenly, in 2004, it seemed that all the stars were in alignment. Solar power was going to be a fact of life for mainstream Californians. The Million Solar Roofs initiative - Senate Bill 1 - was championed by green energy proponents and, according to their polling, 75 percent of the California public. It had significant momentum after being beaten in two legislative sessions. Then Arnold Schwarzenegger liked it so much he made it part of his platform in the recall election of 2003, and swore to see it happen this time around. And up until September 8, the day before the legislature adjourned, SB1 was on track. Then it fell apart.
The story of how this happened is a window into the dysfunction and rancor that is partisan politics in California. The need for solar has never been greater, and the technology has never been better or cheaper. But in a move to thwart the governor, Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez attached an amendment to the bill in an 11th-hour committee meeting that killed it for everyone. That one's going to come up the next time California's Democratic Party says it's for solar power. Environment California, which is the renamed environmental arm of longtime activist group California Public Interest Research Group, or CALPIRG, pledges to keep looking on the sunny side.
-Dean Kuipers
CityBeat:How was SB1 going to work?
Bernadette Del Chiaro:There are three basic things that the bill proposes to do. The first is set up a large, 10-year-long fund to provide consumers with a onetime rebate, and those would be for anyone that's interested in going solar - homeowners, businesses, schools, farms. The rebate program was to sunset in 10 years and the rebate was to decline each year so that the solar industry is forced to lower their prices.
The second thing is it facilitates "net metering," which is where the utility company is forced to give you a credit for any excess electricity that's sent back to the grid. This is something that the utility companies fight tooth and nail. Frankly, it's the one thing that threatens them the most.
Oh, right.
[Laughs]The third thing that the bill was going to do was make solar panels a standard offer for all new-home buyers in California. That is critical because that's the cheapest way to install a solar panel, while the building is being built.
So it's a million roofs over 10 years. How much power would that give us?
Over 10 years, we would build 3,000 megawatts of solar power. That is about six giant power plants' worth of energy-generating capacity. Over the past eight years, we've installed 100 megawatts. So a 30-fold increase in 10 years. If you want to put solar on your roof, what are the barriers right now?
13,000 homeowners have invested in solar over the past eight years, so it's actually more prevalent and widespread than most people believe it to be. But the two problems we do have right now in California are: a) the price does remain fairly steep. In an existing home, you have to have basically eight, nine, ten thousand bucks to invest in the system, and it will pay for itself in a couple of years. The other problem, b) is that we've seen the demand for solar grow tremendously ever since 2001. As a result, we are on the brink of running out of these rebate funds.
So what happened to SB1?
It basically got caught up in the special election politics. The special election hit us on September 9th, instead of November 8th, like it will for most Californians.
What do you mean by that?
Environment California and state Senator Kevin Murray (D-Culver City) - this is our third time trying to pass this big bill. Halfway through our efforts, Governor Schwarzenegger became sort of the official sponsor. It ultimately came back to haunt us somewhat when the special election pitted the governor against the Democrats in the Assembly, who are more threatened by some of the initiatives on the ballot later this November.
So he had to drop this to please his Republican base?
No, no, it was more that it became very difficult for either side to work with each other. From my perspective as a nonpartisan public advocate, an easy compromise there for all of the outstanding issues that the Speaker of the Assembly, Fabian Núñez, wanted, and what the Governor wanted. But neither side was able to get there, and I watched this all fall apart in the span of 24 hours.
Which parts of it were Democratic and which parts of it were Republican?
Good question, because it was a bipartisan bill until it reached its second-to-last step, which was the Assembly Appropriations Committee, and at that point there were three amendments that were attached to the bill that the governor didn't support. They were specific to what one labor union wanted, which was the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW). It said solar systems can only be installed by full-blown electricians, which cut out the laborers and the contractors; right now, there is a special solar installer's license, so-called C-46 licensed contractors. And they're not electricians. So that's really the biggest battle: who gets the jobs. Because our estimates figure about 15,000 new jobs will be created in California because of this initiative.
So there was a union conflict?
Yeah. The governor wasn't interested in cutting out one set of workers over another. But the speaker wanted those amendments because the IBEW wanted those amendments. The other amendments were what are called "prevailing wage" provisions. It's basically union wages. So if it's an electrician, the prevailing wage in Los Angeles is probably, I'm guessing here, around $100 an hour. And the solar industry loudly object to that because here we're trying to lower the price of solar, and the Assembly is proposing a provision that would increase labor costs.
Would be increasing it a lot.
Yeah, those things put together were sort of poison pills, and they were attached to the bill without any kind of public hearing. They were done in complete silence. The language was not available for anyone to see, and the bill just passed.
We knew what the compromise could have been that would still have given the Democrats in the Assembly some protections for labor. But again, neither side was able to get there, and you could cut the tension in the Capitol with a knife. It was just a very bitter legislative year.
Who were the big opponents of this bill?
The utilities were the biggest opponents. The building industry got on board, in fact they supported it. But the 8,000-pound gorilla always waiting in the wings was Edison and PG&E. The labor disagreements were sort of a smokescreen for the utilities who all along were behind the scenes trying to weaken the bill.
What happens to it now?
There are three things that we have as options for us. One is the Public Utilities Commission; it doesn't actually have to wait for the legislature to be able to adopt a multimillion-dollar, multiyear rebate program. And they've already said they're planning on it. The one problem with that option is that the utilities essentially have to administer the program. So it's like the fox watching the henhouse. The second thing is that any bill that didn't make it out gets to be picked up exactly where it left off come January. And, of course, the third option is to just bypass the legislature altogether and go straight to the ballot.
We've tried three times and three times the legislature has failed to act, and the public is clearly supportive of this. A recent Public Policy Institute of California poll found that 75 percent of Californians support the Million Solar Roofs initiative. So if there was the support out there, and the resources, it's something that we're actively considering.
Published: 09/15/2005
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