The California Energy Commission (CEC), also known as the Energy Resources Conservation and Development Commission, is responsible for setting energy policy in California. Its primary responsibility is to facilitate the development of all energy projects in the state, with an eye toward encouraging green energy programs. The commission has the authority to approve or deny site applications for new power plants (including nuclear facilities), to write energy performance standards for new buildings and appliances, to fund research and development, and to support investment in efficiency programs. Since 2007, the commission has spent around $100 million annually on a variety of projects to develop alternatives to petroleum. The commission, which is in the Natural Resources Agency, also permits energy facilities, decides where transmission lines can go, forecasts future energy needs and prepares responses to potential energy emergencies.
An Overview (Energy Commission website)
In the early 1950s the utilities industry was little regulated in California, and utility companies were by and large free to build power plants across the state with minimal interference. Toward the end of the decade, nuclear power plants were becoming an increasingly viable option for energy production, despite the protests of environmentalists.
Pacific Gas & Electric opened the small, 30-megawatt Vallecitos Nuclear Power Plant near Pleasanton in 1957. The plant, due east of San Francisco, was the first privately-funded plant to supply power in megawatt amounts to the electric utility grid. It remained open for a decade. Around the same time, Southern California Edison and Atomics International teamed up to build a small sodium-cooled reactor at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory near Moorpark, north of Los Angeles. It closed in 1964, but not until after an unpublicized partial core meltdown caused the release of radioactive contamination in 1959.
Utility companies were speculating about stringing as many as 63 nuclear plants along the coast and in 1958 Pacific Gas & Electric Co. (PG&E) made public plans to construct a nuclear power plant at Bodega Head, about 68 miles north of San Francisco and atop the same fault line that buckled the city in 1906. The ensuing battle lasted half a decade and ended with PG&E abandoning the project.
The state began to take a more active role in plant site selection in the mid-60s, including the creation of a committee in the state Resources Agency that was given a relatively small role in approving sites selected by utilities and foreshadowed the work of the California Energy Commission. In 1963, PG&E opened the Humboldt Bay Nuclear Power Plant in Eureka; it was the seventh nuclear plant licensed in the country and remained open until seismic issues led to its 1976 closure.
The Legislature passed a bill in September 1973 that created a commission to manage energy policy, but Governor Ronald Reagan vetoed it because of perceived government interference in markets. But the next month, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) declared an oil embargo in response to U.S. support for Israel during the Yom Kippur War, triggering a nationwide oil shortage. The Oil Crisis turned concerns about America’s dependence on foreign oil into front-page news. Many utilities saw nuclear power as the solution. But nuclear power plants generated environmental concerns.
The next year, state Assemblyman Charles Warren and Senator Al Alquist wrote what would become the Warren-Alquist Act, which created the California Energy Commission. The commission would research and plan energy policy as well as inspect and license power plant sites and, along with the already existing California Public Utilities Commission (PUC), be a primary energy regulatory agency in the state. It provided the statutory framework for constraining demand in energy growth while increasing energy efficiency.
This time Governor Reagan signed the Act into law and it took effect the next year. The first five commissioners were selected by his successor, Democratic Governor Jerry Brown.
In its original form, the California Energy Commission was empowered to determine whether new power plants were needed, and to ensure that new ones were being built on stable ground. It also set energy standards, regulated energy production and worked with companies to develop alternative sources of energy. In exchange, private industry was given a process for developing nuclear power plants.
Environmentalists were hoping that the commission would emphasize conservation of energy, and utilities were hoping it would facilitate building nuclear power plants.
But concerns about nuclear power continued to grow. As nuclear plants were developed across the country, it became apparent that technology for dealing with spent nuclear fuel rods was woefully underdeveloped. Nuclear technicians didn’t know what to do with them once their usefulness ended. The Warren-Alquist Act was amended in 1976 to declare a moratorium on the construction of nuclear power plants, while the federal government researched a safe way to store the spent fuel rods. The amendment also decreed that future nuclear plants not be built unless they could safely store the waste.
Following this development, PG&E, as well as the San Diego Gas & Electric Co., sued the California Energy Commission, claiming that the state could not pass laws that contradicted the federal Atomic Energy Act. In 1983, the case of Pacific Gas & Electric Co. v. CEC went to the U.S. Supreme Court and the state won a unanimous decision.
In 1978, as directed by Warren-Alquist, the commission published the first set of energy-efficiency standards for non-residential buildings called the “First Generation” standards. The law required that the commission periodically update these standards, and in 1988 they were amended for the first time. In 1992 the standards were extended to include new residential homes as well.
In 1991, Republican Pete Wilson was elected governor of California and, as promised, his administration pursued aggressive deregulation policies. When it turned to energy policy, Wilson was strongly supported by utility companies—particularly energy giants like Enron, which realized there were enormous profits to be made if they could get the state to eliminate energy restrictions.
Up until 1996, Pacific Gas & Electric, Southern California Edison and San Diego Electric controlled both power production and supply in California’s $23 billion energy market. But after intense lobbying efforts by the utilities, a bill was passed that would transfer responsibility for monitoring the supply and demand of electricity from the state to an independent service operator. The Independent Service Operator (ISO) would buy electricity from companies like Enron, and sell it to smaller middlemen like Pacific Energy & Gas, which would then deliver it to consumers.
The utilities were forced to shed their generating and transmission facilities, freeze rates until they completed the sale of their assets and buy power in an open auction market for electricity known as the Power Exchange.
This partial deregulation made it possible for the energy giants to manipulate the energy market. These companies developed extremely complex marketing schemes that obscured information about how much energy was in California. They developed a series of questionably legal and moral practices—power plants were taken offline for maintenance during days of peak demand—that eventually led to the 2000 California energy crisis, but the two most harmful were called megawatt laundering and over scheduling. Enron was the biggest and most infamous practitioner.
Megawatt laundering was the practice of generating energy in California but manipulating records to make it seem that the energy was generated in other states. Companies were allowed to charge more for energy coming from out-of-state, which made this practice profitable. But it meant that the Energy Commission wasn’t aware of how much energy was actually being produced in California.
Over scheduling was when the companies would claim to be using power lines that they weren’t actually using. Because power lines can only transport a finite amount of megawatt hours, the state would pay companies not to use the power lines they claimed they were using, even though they weren’t.
These kinds of practices came to a head in 2000 when wholesale prices were deregulated but retail prices were not. Utility companies found themselves squeezed by energy providers and a massive energy shortage precipitated rolling blackouts across the state at huge costs.
Governor Gray Davis declared a state of emergency in January 2001. The state stepped in to buy power, since the utility companies were out of money, and the resulting debt and political fallout contributed to Davis’ recall three years later. PG&E filed for bankruptcy, owing $9 billion to 10,000 creditors. Subsequent state and federal legislation stabilized the energy industry and reintroduced new regulatory authority.
Deregulation supporters claimed that if the state had allowed prices to rise and kept its hands off the market, the crisis could have been averted, while opponents wondered why a regulatory system that worked for 40 years needed to be changed in the first place.
Since its electricity crisis, California has pursued a more aggressive green-energy policy than any other state in the country. In 2006, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed two bills designed to cap greenhouse gas emissions. The first was the California Global Warming Solutions Act. It requires that by 2020 state emissions levels be where they were in 1990. The Energy Commission was given authority to fund projects that would help reach this goal.
The second bill was called AB 118. It created the Alternative and Renewable Fuel and Vehicle Technology Program, known as
In 2006, the Legislature passed AB 1632, which required the Energy Commission to assess how vulnerable the state’s two commercial nuclear power plants at San Onofre and Diablo Canyon were to a major disruption caused by earthquake or plant aging. The two plants produce 12% of the state’s electricity and 24% of its low-carbon supply.
Two years later, the commission released its report, which expressed concerns about safety, plant performance and management at San Onofre and asked for additional reports from the utilities. Reports generated by the commission and the utilities would be considered by the PUC and the NRC in their permitting and licensing procedures.
In March 2011, the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami in Japan caused level 7 meltdowns at three reactors in the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant complex, focusing new attention on nuclear facilities and the regulatory process in California.
The nuclear power plant at San Onofre, one of two commercial plants operating in California, was shut down in January 2012 after plant operators discovered radiation leaking into the air. The problem was traced to disintegrating steam-generator tubes that were recently installed in the plant’s two reactors between San Diego and Los Angeles.
40 Year History of Opposition to Nuclear Power in California (The Energy Net)
A Backdoor Approach to Nuclear Regulation: The Creation of the California Energy Commission (by Thomas Raymond Wellock, Critical Masses)
Meeting our Environmental Responsibilities (by Peter Miller, National Resources Defense Council Staff Blog)
Warren-Alquist Act (pdf)
Overview and History of the Standards (Concrete Masonry Association of California and Nevada)
Pacific Gas and Electric Company v. State Energy Resources Conservation and Development Commission (CaseBriefs)
Pacific Gas & Electric Co. v. State Energy Resources Conservation and Development Commission (Justia.com)
An Assessment of California’s Nuclear Power Plants: AB 1632 Report (Energy Commission) (pdf)
The California Experiment (by Ron Brownstein, The Atlantic)
Development of Regulations for the Alternative and Renewable Fuel and Vehicle Technology Program (Energy Commission website)
Renewables Portfolio Standard Reports and Notices from Publicly Owned Utilities (Energy Commission website)
Energy Crisis Overview: How We Got Here (San Francisco Chronicle)
The California Energy Commission’s five basic responsibilities are: forecasting future statewide electricity needs and keeping historical data on energy; licensing power plants to meet those needs; promoting energy efficiency and conservation; developing renewable energy resources and alternative energy technologies; and planning for and directing state response to energy emergencies.
Over the past decade the state Legislature has pursued an aggressive green energy agenda, which has caused the commission to grow in both size and influence. The CEC has seen its budget—it receives money from both the state and federal government—increase nearly every year since 1998.
California has passed three major laws since 2006 that have set goals to reduce the amount of fossil fuels and other non-renewable energy sources used in the state. A big part of what the commission does is facilitating those goals by awarding funds to companies that are developing green technology. The commission considers several factors when choosing which companies and institutions should be awarded this money, but there has been concern over the past year that the board has chosen projects that are financially unstable.
It is also responsible for licensing all thermal power plants that produce more than 49 megawatts of power. Along with the California Public Utilities Commission, it licenses all nuclear power plants. Before a plant can be licensed, the Energy Commission must determine its necessity. Nuclear plants must also prove they can store all spent nuclear fuel rods.
Finally, the commission drafts responses to energy disasters in California, and is responsible for directing them should they ever need to be implemented.
In 2009, the California Energy Commission received more than $300 million in federal funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. It has been doling that money out to other renewable energy projects.
The commission is headed by a five-person board made up of specialists representing four different fields of study and a fifth person serving as the public adviser. The board members, with the exception of the public adviser, are appointed by the governor, and serve five-year terms. The four fields of specialization are engineering or physical science, environmental protection, economics and law. The public adviser is nominated by the committee and then appointed by the governor. He or she serves only a three-year term.
The CEC is divided into dozens of subdivisions, most of which are responsible for a certain branch of energy technology. Many of these subdivisions are responsible for funding clean energy projects. Each of those receives thousands of proposals a year from companies, nonprofits or local governments requesting funding for projects related to that subdivision’s field. Each subdivision is given a different budget, which is determined either by state law or the commission board.
The commission is broadly divided into six different divisions. They are: the Administrative and Financial Services Division; the Electricity Supply Analysis Division; the Siting, Transmission and Environmental Protection Division; the Energy Efficiency and Renewables Division; the Energy Research and Development Division; and the Fuels and Transportation Division.
The Administrative and Financial Services Division is the in-house administrative department.
The Electricity Supply Analysis Division is responsible for the first task. Its job is to keep exhaustive records of every aspect of the energy industry. It analyzes current energy trends, and makes predictions about how much energy will be used in the future. It must consider any changes in infrastructure that may happen. It reproduces its reports for legislators and the general public.
The Siting, Transmission and Environmental Protection Division is responsible for licensing all new power plants generating over 49 megawatts. It produces guidelines that utilities companies must abide by when building new plants. It is divided into five offices, each that specializes in a specific angle from which plant construction is considered.
The Energy Efficiency and Renewables Division is the main regulatory body of the CEC. It is divided into several subdivisions that determine the energy regulations that are then enforced by the state. These subdivisions also attempt public outreach to explain the economic and health benefits of clean energy.
The division provides some funding for projects designed to advance the use of clean energy. Unlike other divisions, which fund private projects, this division runs its own programs. Until recently it had two subdivisions dedicated to creating and operating green energy programs. The first, the Public Programs Office, sent technicians into public buildings. Its primary focus was on K-12 schools, but it also targeted cities, counties, special districts, public colleges, hospitals, and public-care facilities.
The programs were designed to be voluntary. Public institutions were given the option of paying a fee, and having technicians inspect their grounds and suggest green energy upgrades. The office claimed that these upgrades often ended up reducing energy costs by as much as 20%. However, as of January 2010, these programs were suspended, and the Public Programs Office was subsumed by the Transportation Division.
The second subdivision of the Energy Efficiency and Renewables Office is the Renewable Energy Office. This office is still operating. Like the Public Programs Office, the Renewable Energy Office was designed to develop voluntary programs to spread the use of renewable energy.
The Renewable Energy Office recently partnered with the Public Utilities Commission to introduce a multi-billion dollar initiative called Go Solar California. This project allows California residents to pay a fee and have solar panels installed on their roofs. The goal of Go Solar California is to be using 3,000 megawatts of solar energy to power homes and businesses by 2016.
The Energy, Research and Development Division and the Fuels and Transportation Division are the two largest divisions in the CEC. These two divisions are responsible for all the funding that goes to independent energy projects across the state.
The Fuels and Transportation Division is the newest branch of the CEC. It was created to oversee DRIVE, the state’s Alternative & Renewable Fuel & Vehicle Technology Program.
The Energy, Research and Development Division focuses on issues related to climate change through the Public Interest Energy Research (PIER) program, created as part of deregulation legislation in 1996 that shifted the administration of public-interest energy-related research development from utilities to state government.
PIER is separated into three categories, each with its own budget. These are: the Public Interest Research, Development, & Demonstration Funds; the Public Interest Renewable Fund, which focuses on renewable energy; and the Natural Gas Subaccount of the Public Interest RD&D Fund (PIER-NG). These public interest research funds are similar to
The Renewable Fund focuses on renewable energy and PIER-NG focuses on natural gas.
PIER is the original project. It was initially the only funding body of the CEC. As such its mission is less specialized. It focuses simply on improving energy efficiency in whatever way it can.
In the years before these offshoots were developed, PIER took up a majority of the commission’s budget. In the past few years it has seen its budget decrease substantially.
The California Energy Commission provides funding for hundreds of projects, institutions, companies and public utilities every year. Governor Jerry Brown’s proposed 2012-13 budget was around $390 million. About three-fourths of that money was earmarked for research and development of alternatives to petroleum.
The commission is providing annual incentives of around $100 million through 2014 to develop and deploy alternative fuels and technologies. In 2011-12, those allocations included: $23 million for natural gas, propane and advanced technologies in medium- and heavy-duty vehicles; $13 million for ethanol and other gasoline substitutes; $8.5 million for hydrogen fuel infrastructure; $8 million for pre-landfill biomethane production; $8 million for diesel substitutes; $8 million in support of plug-in electric vehicles; and $8 million for natural gas fuel infrastructure.
Nearly 20% of the budget is typically aimed at energy resources conservation, including a building standards program that establishes and enforces energy efficiency. It encompasses commercial and residential projects, existing structures and those still on the drawing board, including hospitals, schools, local governments, water treatment facilities and agricultural facilities.
Almost 10% of the budget is spent on its regulatory and planning program. In addition to gathering data for long-range energy supply planning, this commission program certifies power plant site applications, designates transmission line corridors and monitors new facilities.
$106.1 million of the 2011-12 budget went to the Alternative & Renewable Fuel & Vehicle Technology program known as DRIVE. Another $138 million went to public interest research projects. $43.3 million went to the Public Interest Energy Research (PIER) program. $70.7 went to the Public Interest Renewable Fund. $24 million went to the natural gas subdivision of PIER.
Another $68.5 million went to the Energy Resources Programs Account (ERPA). This account is the funding source for the Energy Commission staff. It deals with all accounting and operating expenses.
The Energy Commission budget is divided into three broad categories, from which the above-mentioned programs derive. The first is the Regulatory and Planning Program. This is the budget for all energy research and power plant licensing. It totals $40 million of the entire budget, most of which goes to the ERPA fund. Ironically, despite being only a small percentage of the overall commission budget, it takes up almost half of the ERPA fund.
The second category is the Energy Resources Conservation Program. This funds all regulatory activity at the CEC. Most of its budget comes from the federal government.
The largest program by far is the third, the Development Program. This program is responsible for energy research, and funds the public interest research programs and DRIVE.
The remaining funds go towards general reimbursements, facility license and compliance funds, and other assorted expenses.
In 2009 the Energy Commission received over $314 million as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. It created four new projects to handle that money, the largest being the State Energy Program, which received $226 million. The State Energy Program has several functions, the largest being a program to retrofit residential and commercial buildings to bring them up to current efficiency standards.
The DRIVE program receives more money than any other program that the CEC oversees. Every year the five-person commission board, in conjunction with various stakeholders and a separate advisory board, determines a set of goals that DRIVE will focus on. It outlines its goals, and all the projects that it has decided to fund, in a report that it releases at the beginning of the fiscal year.
3-Year Budget (pdf)
Synopsis of the Energy Commission’s Budget (Energy Commission website)
California Economic Recovery Energy-Related Programs (Energy Commission website)
2011/2012 Investment Plan for the Alternative and Renewable Fuel and Vehicle Technology Program (California Energy Commission) (pdf)
Shutting Down the San Onofre Nuclear Plant
The nuclear power plant at San Onofre, one of two commercial plants operating in California, was shut down in January 2012 after plant operators discovered radiation leaking into the air. The problem was traced to disintegrating steam-generator tubes that were recently installed in the plant’s two reactors north of San Diego.
Fears that the plant would be closed at least through the summer when energy use peaks energized utilities and government regulators. Gregory Jaczko, chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), toured the plant in April with California Senator Dianne Feinstein as plant operator Southern California Edison said it would take 321 of the damaged tubes out of service. The tubes are critical safety barriers and each of the plant’s four steam generators has 10,000 of them.
As investigators bore in on the troubled facility, nuclear consultant Fairewinds Associates produced a report for environmental watchdog Friends of the Earth that alleged Edison had misled the NRC about the tubes, which were installed in 2009 and 2010 as part of a larger refurbishment of the generators. The environmental group said the NRC had been assured that the old tubes were replaced with roughly the same product that had lasted for 20 years. The new tubes lasted considerably less time.
The Energy Commission is required by law to assess the vulnerability of the state’s two commercial nuclear power plants at San Onofre and Diablo Canyon to a major disruption caused by earthquake or plant aging. The two plants produce 12% of the state’s electricity and 24% of its low-carbon supply.
The Energy Commission assessment is incorporated into decisions by the California Public Utilities Commission, which authorizes license renewal feasibility studies, and the NRC, which licenses plants. Its report in 2008 was hotly contested by Edison and Pacific Gas & Electric, operator of Diablo Canyon.
Critics warn that the San Onofre plant was built in 1968 to withstand a 7.0 earthquake, but that it sits on a fault capable of an 8.0 quake (10 times stronger) that is long overdue. New technology has led to a better understanding of the fault structure near the plant, which is within a 50-mile radius of five counties, including Los Angeles and San Diego.
It’s been more than 30 years since a nuclear plant was built in the United States, but in February 2012 the NRC green-lighted construction of two reactors southeast of Augusta, Georgia. Plans are to bring them online by 2017. President Barack Obama has expressed support for development of nuclear energy.
Latest Accident at San Onofre Nuclear Plant Worries Activists, Residents (by Jamie Reno, The Daily Beast)
An Assessment of California’s Nuclear Power Plants: AB 1632 Report (Energy Commission) (pdf)
California Energy Commission Policy Reports (San Onofre Safety)
Evaluation of California Energy Commission AB 1632 Report Recommendations (Southern California Edison) (pdf)
Cascading Major Design Changes Caused San Onofre Nuclear Reactor Steam Generator Failures and Radiation Leak (by Donna Gilmore, San Onofre Safety)
Quake Faults Near San Onofre Nuclear Plant to be Studied (by Abby Sewell, Los Angeles Times)
Why Is Safety a Divisive Issue for Nuclear Regulatory Commission? (by Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times)
Consumer Electronic Standards
Over the years, the Energy Commission has approved energy saving standards for many household products, including: refrigerators, freezers, air conditioners, heat clothes dryers, pumps, boilers, furnaces water heaters, lighting, and most recently, televisions.
The television standards were introduced by the commission in 2008 and were challenged by the Consumer Electronic Association (
The commission frequently bumps heads with the
The television standards took effect in 2011 after a three-year struggle, and are expected to save consumers $8.1 billion in energy costs over 10 years. Televisions account for 10% of a typical household’s electricity usage, according to the commission.
The commission announced a new round of regulatory standards in 2012 for computers, displays, game consoles, imaging equipment, servers and set-top boxes, prompting the
The Energy Commission responds that mandatory standards save money in the short-term through lower energy bills and in the long-term through a reduced need to build new power plants.
CEA Objects to California Energy Commission Move to Regulate Consumer Electronics (Business Wire)
CEA: Regulator Should Stay Out of It (by Karen Idelson, Variety Technology News)
New Bay Area Plant Cluster Opposed
Taking advantage of what environmentalists call a loophole in the law, utility companies with the blessing of the California Energy Commission are clustering four small fossil-fuel plants in the Northern California’s East Bay. Wild Equity Institute, Communities for a Better Environment and the Center for Biological Diversity filed a formal notice of their intention to sue the Energy Commission and block operation of three new plants approved for operation in the Oakley-Antioch area near an already existing plant.
“Power plants right next door to each other will emit more pollution than a major source,” said Brent Plater of the Wild Equity Institute. “And each is just under the limit” of being considered “a major pollution source.” The Energy Commission has approved the new stations, all within one mile of the existing Contra Costa County Power Plant in Antioch, over a three-year period.
The groups, invoking the federal Clean Air and Endangered Species Act, are concerned that the plants will endanger the rare Metalmark butterfly and endanger public health. The butterfly is native to the Antioch Dunes and the groups contend that nitrogen emissions from the plants will change soil conditions, killing the Metalmark caterpillar’s sole food source, naked-stemmed buckwheat.
A previous environmental challenge that asserted a direct threat to the endangered butterfly failed in court. Environmentalists said they hoped for either stricter pollution controls on the plants or construction delays that make substitute renewable energy efforts more feasible.
State Oks 2 Bay Area Power Plants over Objections (by David R. Baker, San Francisco Chronicle)
The Power Plant Cluster (by Robert Gammon, East Bay Express)
Butterfly Could KO Antioch Power Plants (by John Upton, The Bay Citizen)
Lawsuit Launched Challenging Massive Power Plant Expansion in Northern California (Center for Biological Diversity)
Commission Sued Over Solar Plant
California would like to get a third of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020 and plants like the Calico Solar Project, 37 miles east of Barstow near the Mexican border, are key to reaching that goal. The 663.5-megawatt project, which would be built on 7.2 square miles of federal land, has had three different operators since the first contracts were signed in 2005.
Solar projects have proven divisive for environmental groups that want to develop alternative energy resources but are wary of wreaking havoc in the environments chosen for the projects.
The California Energy Commission approved the project in 2010 when it was going to produce 850 megawatts using 20,000 solar dishes but threats of litigation over environmental concerns led to a decision to switch from solar dishes to photovoltaic panels. Apparently that wasn’t enough for three environmental groups, The Sierra Club, Defenders of Wildlife and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), that announced in March 2012 they would sue the federal government to stop the project.
Environmentalists warn that protected animals like the desert tortoise and golden eagle are endangered by the project, as well as bighorn sheep, burrowing owls and fringe-toed lizards. They would prefer that projects like Calico Solar be built on former agricultural lands, already mined lands or along transmission corridors rather than on pristine open space that has been virtually undisturbed since prehistoric times.
The desert tortoise was a key player in an earlier conflict over the 337-megawatt BrightSource Energy’s Ivanpah plant near Las Vegas, where construction was halted in 2010 until 37 of the animals were relocated.
According to Green Chip Stocks, five of the nine large-scale solar plants approved at state and federal levels are currently involved in litigation.
Sierra Club Sues over California Solar Plant (by Sarah McBride, Reuters)
Calico Solar Permitting Bill Advances (by Sam Pearson, Desert Dispatch)
California Unions for Reliable Energy Partners with K Road Calico Solar Project (Reuters)
Environment Group Sues U.S. over Mojave Solar Project (by Don Jeffrey, Bloomberg BusinessWeek)
Another Solar Power Plant Delayed (by Sam Schrader, Green Chip Stocks)
Environmentalists Feeling Burned by Rush to Build Solar Projects (by Julie Cart, Los Angeles Times)
Many Wind and Solar Projects on Public Lands Get It Right, Calico Doesn't (by Johanna Wald, Natural Resources Defense Council Blog)
The Energy Crisis
The biggest controversy the California Energy Commission has seen was precipitated by the deregulation of the energy companies that led to the California energy crisis, and eventually the collapse of Enron. While traditionally the Energy Commission is responsible for deciding on energy regulation, energy company lobbyists pushed a bill through the state legislature that would override the Commission’s responsibility to regulate, an give it to the state.
That said, by 1996, most of the commission board members had been appointed by Republican Governor Pete Wilson, who was adamantly opposed to state regulation. In 1998 the commission released new building standards that were dramatically more relaxed than they had been in the past. The stated reason was to increase competitiveness in the state.
After the energy crisis, most people blamed the deregulation acts of 1996. The Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights, a non-profit watchdog group based in Santa Monica, California, released a report in 2000 that said the utilities companies had manipulated the energy supply in order to increase its profits. When Governor Gray Davis took office in 1999, he also blamed the crisis on the deregulation policies of his predecessor.
The California Energy Commission released a report in 2000 that said the state had enough energy in supply to prevent a blackout. A national scandal broke out when it was revealed that the giant energy companies were hoarding their electricity, and selling it at marked-up rates.
Davis won reelection in 2003, despite massive unpopularity. A majority of Californians blamed him for the energy crisis. Almost immediately after his reelection, California Republican Congressman Darrell Issa led a petition drive to recall him. Davis continued to blame Wilson for the state’s energy problems, and said a recall would be an insult to the 8 million people who had voted in the 2002 election. His protests were unsuccessful. On October 7, 2003, Davis was recalled, and replaced with Arnold Schwarzenegger.
In 2001, former governor Wilson wrote an article for the Hoover Institution defending his deregulation policies, and criticizing Davis for blaming his predecessor and not doing enough to fix the energy crisis.
California Scheming (by Chris Taylor, Time Magazine)
Electricity “Crisis” Caused by 1996 Deregulation: Californians Face Blackout as Energy Industry Profits Skyrocket (by Doug Heller, Consumer Watchdog)
Debunking the Ten Myths of Utility Regulation (by Wenonah Hauter and Tyson Slocum, Public Citizen)
What California Must Do (Former Governor Pete Wilson, for the Hoover Institute)
Constitutional Amendment
With global warming a national issue, and one of the most contentious ones, there have been some radical reform suggestions coming from the right. A conservative activist in California named Oscar Alejandro Braun began gathering signatures in 2011 for a proposed amendment to the state constitution that would prohibit the state from performing any environmental regulation whatsoever.
Braun’s proposed amendment is the most extreme of its kind, but others have been rattling for the commission to relax its regulatory standards. Many conservatives also believe that Senate Bill 2X, which requires private and municipal utilities to get one-third of their electricity from renewable energy sources by 2020, should be repealed.
California Voters Could be Asked to Scrap Environmental Laws (Central Valley Business Times)
“The Stick, the Carrot, and the Hot Fudge Sundae”
In 2005, Stanford University hosted an Energy Modeling Forum with the goal of discussing ways to increase energy efficiency in California. James Sweeney, a professor in the Department of Management Science and Engineering and an adviser to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, proposed committing to more short-term contracts with utility companies as a way to spur competition. He said that doing so would short-circuit the complacency of California’s biggest energy providers.
Former Energy Commission Chair Jackalyne Pfannenstiel was also at the forum. She proposed new regulations under a plan she called “the stick, the carrot, and the hot fudge sundae.” This was a system of regulations and financial rewards for industries or buildings that comply. She said the hot fudge sundaes were projects or public education programs that resulted in greater energy efficiency.
Representatives from the Shell Oil Company proposed funding for new technology research.
These dual proposals from the oil industry and Energy Commission underscore two of the directions that opposing groups want the commission to go in. Energy companies want more funding to enact projects that will increase energy efficiency. Those on the left want more restrictions. The CEC does both.
Josie Garthwaite, who writes for the technology blog GigaOM, said one problem with the Energy Commission’s selection process for new energy projects is that there is no discussion between the selection boards and the award recipients beyond the initial proposal. This means that the commission can’t ask follow up questions about the intended project can realistically accomplish. More discussion, Garthwaite proposes, could mean that the Commission will select projects that are more economically sustainable once their government funding dries up.
Energy Reform: Can it Happen Under the Hummer Governor? (by Dawn Levy, Stanford University News)
Why’d Cali Downplay Market Viability for Green Car Grants? (by Josie Garthwaite, GigaOM)
Climate Change
The earliest efforts to develop alternative energy sources in California received their greatest impetus in the ‘50s and ‘60s from a desire to slow the development of nuclear power and reduce its potential environmental threat. Creation of the Energy Commission in 1974, while the country grappled with the OPEC oil embargo, coincided with technological advances that could be applied to building standards, and made accessible alternatives to oil and nuclear power seem cheaper and more feasible.
California’s deregulation of energy in the late ‘90s and the ensuing electricity crisis reinvigorated efforts at long-term energy planning and efficiency. Building and appliance standards proliferated. By then, global warming—which asserted that not only was the Earth getting warmer, but that human behavior was a prime catalyst and that the end result would be catastrophic—was gaining credence as a factor in energy policy.
In 1988, the Energy Commission was made the lead agency for climate control in the state and, as early as 1989, was producing reports like “The Impacts of Global Warming on California” while still cautioning that come scientists questioned “whether the globe faces much, if any, warming.” Governor Gray Davis signed legislation in 2001 that directed the commission to assist in establishing baseline assessments of greenhouse gas emissions.
Four years later, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed an executive order that set greenhouse gas targets through 2050. And two pieces of legislation in 2006—the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, Assembly Bill 32, and Senate Bill 1368 on emission performance standards—were hailed as landmarks.
The commission’s website refers to passage of the laws as proof of “the arrival at consensus that California must act to mitigate its greenhouse gas emissions, in order to reduce the impact of climate change.”
A survey conducted in March 2012 found that 62% of Americans were aware of unusual weather events in the country and by a margin of 2-1 say the weather has been getting worse over the past several years. But nearly half of those surveyed said they hadn’t really seen any increase in heavy rain storms, heat waves or droughts over the past few decades.
Assertions of “consensus” may be a tad overstated.
Extreme Weather, Climate & Preparedness in the American Mind (Survey by Yale Project on Climate Change Communication and the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication) (pdf)
California Energy Commission's Climate Change Activities (Energy Commission website)
On the Right: Global Warming is Much Ado about Nothing
Arguments on the right range from a denial that the Earth is, indeed, growing warmer to assertions that man has nothing to do with global warming if it is happening.
The science of climate change is relatively new and it’s not hard to cherry pick data that supports one’s world view. It’s also not hard to conjure up causes for effects that are beyond proving through the scientific process. Skeptics point to changes in solar output and ocean cycles, continued recovery from the Little Ice Age between the 15th and 19th centuries, non-invasive changes in land and normal fluctuations in temperature use as culprits as likely as massive injections of CO2 into the atmosphere by humans.
Global warming has become heavily politicized and is suspected of being used by its proponents as a cudgel to pound supporters of growth, private economic development and industrial innovation. Some on the right claim their political opponents are trying to paint them as ignorant Neanderthals living in the past or greedy, heartless capitalists willing to sacrifice the planet in pursuit of money and power, in order to score points at the ballot box and advance their own ideology.
An article in Forbes that tilted toward the proposition that it’s too early to end the debate cited the conventional wisdom that “97% of climate scientists” accept the global warming “consensus” before questioning whether it’s clear what is meant by the term global warming.
Not everyone buys that there is even remotely a consensus among scientists. The Global Warming Petition Project found 31,487 American scientists, including 9,029 with Ph.D.s, willing to sign a petition that urges the U.S. government to reject the 1997 United Nations-sponsored Kyoto, Japan, global warming agreement because, “There is no convincing scientific evidence that human releases of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate.”
The late Professor Frederick Seitz, past president of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, took his argument in opposition to the Kyoto treaty beyond that. “Research data on climate change do not show that human use of hydrocarbons is harmful,” Seitz wrote. “To the contrary, there is good evidence that increased atmospheric carbon dioxide is environmentally helpful.”
Petition project founder Art Robinson, a research professor of chemistry, says accepting the views of global warming advocates “would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind.” It would also deprive people of their rights. “The inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness include the right of access to life-giving and life-enhancing technology,” Robinson said.
Robinson argued that the treaty was a play by the United Nations for power, money and control and called its actions a violation of human rights. Those fundamental rights could only be protected by requirements “that U.S. citizens and their industries be free to produce and use the low cost, abundant energy that they need.”
The political machinations of the United Nations are typical, its critics say, of behavior on the left. Walter E. Williams, professor of economics at George Mason University, says legitimate scientific views are being misrepresented, if not outright suppressed, by the mainstream media. “There’s a much more important issue that poses an even greater danger to mankind,” Williams wrote. “That’s the effort by environmentalists to suppress disagreement with their view.” He cited a documentary called “The Great Global Warming Swindle” that has aired in Britain but not the United States. “Governments are trying to achieve unanimity by stifling any scientist who disagrees. Einstein could not have got funding under the present system.”
Republican Oklahoma Senator James Inofre has written a book, “The Greatest Hoax: How the Global Warming Conspiracy Threatens Your Future,” that spells out in no uncertain terms that the climate change issue is a conspiracy by liberals to control the population through “draconian new government controls” like carbon taxes and wealth redistribution. His views are echoed by fellow politicians on the right. Texas Governor Rick Perry calls global warming “one contrived phony mess” and Congressman Ron Paul says “it might turn out to be one of the greatest hoaxes of all history, this whole global warming terrorism that they’ve been using.”
Professor Richard Lindzen of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, considered in some circles the foremost scholar on climate change, has done extensive studies on the formation of clouds and dismisses as meaningless the world’s increase in carbon dioxide, which he readily admits. “The evidence is that the increase in CO2 will lead to very little warming, and that the connection of this minimal warming (or even significant warming) to the purported catastrophes is also minimal.”
The reason? Clouds. Lindzen has been saying for more than a decade that satellite records support his theory that clouds will adjust to the changing CO2 levels and, like the eye’s iris, will open to allow the escape of heat before it becomes pent up. “If I’m right, we’ll have saved money,” Lindzen said. “If I’m wrong, we’ll know it in 50 years and can do something.”
California has been in the forefront of the debate on global warming, passing legislation that favors development of alternative energy sources, encourages conservation, regulates polluting industries and educates the public. Critics argue that these actions are unnecessary job killers in a troubled economy, that California can’t solve the world’s greenhouse gas problems (if they exist) by itself and that efforts to create new green industries is a waste of time and, uh, energy.
They question the number of so-called “green jobs” that might be generated by a shift to alternative energy sources like wind, solar and geo-thermal. President Barack Obama has set a goal of 5 million green jobs over 10 years. Governor Jerry Brown envisions 500,000 clean-technology jobs in California by decade’s end. The reality may be quite different. A 2011 story in the New York Times asserted that government records showed, “Federal and state efforts to stimulate creation of green jobs have largely failed” and cited a weatherization program in California that failed to use half the $186 million given it by the federal government.
Understanding the Global Warming Debate (by Warren Meyer, Forbes)
Number of Green Jobs Fails to Live up to Promises (by Aaron Glantz, New York Times)
A National and Regional Green Jobs Assessment (Brookings Institution)
Californians’ Incredible Shrinking Income (Orange County Register editorial)
31,000 Scientists Reject “Global Warming” Agenda (by Bob Unruh, World Net Daily)
On the Left: Climate Change Is Real and a Threat
Global warming skeptics like to argue that, at best, this is a relatively new debate that has deeply divided the scientific community. The claim is evidenced by a petition allegedly signed by 31,487 scientists. An analysis of the petition found that the “scientists” were overwhelmingly not involved in climate science, signatures were often laughable forgeries (tip of the hat to Michael J. Fox, Perry S. Mason and Spice Girl Dr. Geri Halliwell), and many of the signatories were misled by an attached article that purported to be from the National Academy of Sciences, but was not.
Questionable petitions aside, surveys and polls of the scientific community show an overwhelming acknowledgement of climate change, despite myriad unanswered questions. They also show that 97% of working climate scientists see global warming as a serious problem. Scientists are currently far ahead of the general public in that regard.
It has been apparent since the 1950s that the world is heating up, primarily from the burning of fossil fuels and the destruction of tropical forests. The release of methane into the atmosphere from landfills, livestock, and oil and gas facilities is also a significant contributor.
There was widespread agreement that a problem existed and needed to be addressed but instead of a debate over how global warming was going to be dealt with, it became a debate over its very existence.
The science hasn’t changed over the past decade, but people’s perception of it has. Seventy-seven percent of Americans in 2006 believed that climate change was connected to human-caused pollution.
Three years later that number had dropped to 57%.
The decline came as the Obama administration attempted to control heat-trapping emissions in a highly combustible political environment. Attacks on the “Kenyan socialist” who “hates our freedom” escalated as elements of his climate control program that included “cap and trade” came under attack by a wide range of corporate antagonists. Under cap-and-trade, businesses can buy and sell pollution permits to meet emissions limits; this puts an added layer of government oversight and regulation on practices corporations would prefer were less, not more, transparent.
Those who feel global warming is a serious problem in need of immediate attention point out that this isn’t the first time corporate interests found it profitable and convenient to pervert science and mislead the public. Tobacco companies knew for decades about the toxic effect of their products before the law and public awareness caught up with them. Food processing interests and pesticide companies are just two industries that devoted millions of dollars contesting legitimate science and propagandizing the public about the benign, at best, effects of their wares.
In “Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming,” author Naomi Oreskes documented the systematic effort to deceive consumers and spread lies. Many of the same mercenaries who peddled DDT and cigarettes to an unsuspecting public now work on global warming for many of the same usual suspects.
Even as global warming skeptics continue to make their case, winning new converts as they go, scientists are saying that most every one of their arguments has now been thoroughly vetted and dismissed by climate researchers. Of late, the pre-eminent authority among skeptics is Professor Richard Lindzen at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who acknowledges that the world is producing more heat but theorizes that a decrease in clouds will act as thermostats, allowing the heat to escape the Earth.
A paper Lindzen wrote in 2009 was thoroughly discredited after major errors were found in his use of satellite measurements. Lindzen himself acknowledged “stupid errors” in the paper that were “just embarrassing” and “really sort of grotesque” but tried to publish a follow-up paper in 2011 that was rejected by all major scientific publications. It was eventually published in a small Korean journal.
The New York Times called Lindzen’s cloud claims “the last bastion for dissenters.”
As glaciers melt, sea levels and temperatures rise, weather becomes ever more destructive and ecological disasters become common occurrences, it might become apparent that we don’t have the time afforded a previous generation to get the science right and people informed.
California is leading the way on climate change, as it often has in the past on health and science issues. Critics are right when they say California can’t fix the problem by itself. They may also be correct that there could be a price to pay for changing our ways in challenging economic times (at least in the short-term). And they are probably right that all the information is not in on global warming.
But scientists say the discussion over climate change has become anything but an honest debate about the scientific evidence or even competing philosophical ideas. It’s a war on science, they say, by people who find it profitable to obscure truth while they plunder the world. This time, there might not be time for a pitched battle over propaganda.
Global Warming & Climate Change (New York Times)
How California Came to Lead the United States in Energy Efficiency (by Arthur H. Rosenfeld with Deborah Poskanzer) (pdf)
Cooling the Warming Debate: Major New Analysis Confirms That Global Warming Is Real (Science Daily)
Ignore the Petition Project (Climate Sight)
Global Warming 101 (Union of Concerned Scientists)
Global Warming & Climate Change Myths (Skeptical Science)
Steep Decline in Americans' Belief in Global Warming (by Dina Cappiello, Associated Press)
Clouds Are the Last Hope of the Climate Deniers (by Kevin Drum, Mother Jones)
Clouds’ Effect on Climate Change Is Last Bastion for Dissenters (by Justin Gillis, New York Times)
Bad Headline Mars Good NY Times Story Debunking Lindzen’s ‘Discredited’ Cloud Theory. Can You Do Better? (by Joe Romm, ThinkProgress)
Karen Douglas, 2008–2011
Jackalyne Pfannenstiel, 2006–2008. Pfannenstiel was appointed to the board by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2004, and made chair in 2006. Previously she worked for Pacific Gas and Electric Company, working to set utility rates. She was at PG&E when it took the California Energy Commission to the Supreme Court in 1983. In 1987 she was made vice president of strategic planning. She stayed there until she was appointed to the Energy Commission board. In 2010, Pfannenstiel was appointed by President Barack Obama to be assistant secretary of the Navy.
Joseph Desmond, 2005–2006
William J. Keese, 1997–2005
Charles R. Imbrecht, 1983–1997. A moderate Republican, he was elected to the state Assembly in 1978. Appointed to the board by Governor George Deukmejian, Imbrecht was chairman the entire time that he served. He resigned in 1997 due to alcoholism and died of a heart attack in 2000.
Russell L. Schweickart, 1979–1983. Schweickart was an Air Force fighter pilot from 1956–1963. In 1963, he became part of NASA’s third astronaut group, and went into space in 1969 as pilot for the Lunar Module on the Apollo 9 mission. He worked for Governor Jerry Brown as his assistant for science and technology and was appointed chairman of the Energy Commission in 1979.
Richard L. Maullin, 1975–1979
Former Commissioners (Energy Commission website)
- Table of Contents
- Overview
- History
- What it Does
- Where Does the Money Go
- Controversies
- Suggested Reforms
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