ventura ventura, May 14, 2019

We have the rare opportunity to look the five California Public Utilities Commissioners in their eyes and tell them we need more transparency, more accountability and greater speed getting off of fossil fuels. We are the public that they are supposed to be protecting instead of the for-profit utilities. Please read these topics and show up at the Oxnard City Council Chamber 305 West 3rd St. and help let these regulators know we are watching.

 

  1. Climate Emergency Goal Net Zero Emissions by Earliest Possible Date

350 Ventura County Climate Hub joins Sierra Club California in declaring that the world faces an existential Climate Emergency requiring a state goal of net zero emissions by the earliest possible date. I am asking others who believe we are in a Climate Emergency to please stand.  We declare the climate situation threatens natural habitats, biodiversity and human populations and economies.

We therefore urge you to accelerate comprehensive, immediate, and sustained action to achieve net zero emissions in all California jurisdictions by the earliest possible date to help limit global warming to no more than 1.5 °C, toward a safe and stable climate while working in partnership with disadvantaged communities to achieve essential environmental justice goals.

Is it responsible for us to shout FIRE! in a crowded PUC meeting?

The house is on fire. We believe your new Integrated Resource Plan and all agencies of state and local government can do much more to remove barriers and stop protecting the profits of Investor Owned Utilities to the detriment of the public. Update your priorities, commitments and procedures as quickly as possible to achieve net zero emissions by the earliest possible date.

Image result for CLIMATE EMERGENCY

  1. Distributed Energy Generation (DER), Resilience, and Cost-Effectiveness

 We in the Moorpark Subarea have been fighting your preconceived theories about what we need for many years. We appreciate that storage and DR is replacing the Puente boondoggle, but the truth is that our advocates told you in 2012 that Edison did not give a chance to anything but Puente. You dismissed us. We fought you for four years. We are unhappy about wasted time. To add insult to injury CAISO approved Edison’s 4th transmission line from Santa Clarita to Moorpark substation despite the flaws in the cost comparison that did not include operation and maintenance. The 4th line is more expensive in the long run and less resilient than DERs. You may say, ‘To assure reliability we require cost-effectiveness.’  If you include true costs, investments in renewable DERs will always be more cost-effective.

It is time that you start properly allocating the true costs. Who pays when utilities help wreck the climate, make children sick and cause fires? It is time to let communities decide what is cost-effective and who will pay for what. It’s not just ratepayers who benefit from protection against climate change, fire and bad air! Our CCA can do the best resource plan for our area.

 

  1. Clean Power Alliance can do a reliable Integrated Resource Plan for energy reliability. We do not want a Central Buyer.

When we say we can do our own Integrate Resource Plan, we are saying we can make the best decisions about true costs and who should pay them. We can also plan our contracts to assure reliable energy supply. We do not want a state central buyer. A central buyer will block efficient development of renewable energy, because it will be influenced if not completely captured by Sempra Gas Company who we do not trust, whose negligence and unaccountability at Aliso Canyon is infamous.

We trust Clean Power Alliance to plan our integrated resources, because the board members and all related institutions of our CCA share our values and are transparent. Stop forcing us to fight against top-down controls and barriers to progress that protect the profiteering and polluting utilities who do not have our interests at heart.  Please work with us as we work for reliability, resilience, and rapid deployment of local generation to achieve net zero energy at the earliest possible date.

 

  1. Agenda Item 24 Proposed Decision on Cost Effectiveness Testing (R14-10-003) re: True Social Costs of Carbon and Health Impacts/Costs Must Be Analyzed in All CPUC Proceedings

We welcome cost-effectiveness tests that incorporate the true costs of greenhouse gas emissions causing the climate crisis and the health impact of toxic air pollutants.

We ask you to improve this decision to more accurately incorporate the value of clean local energy or DERs as critical tools for meeting California’s policy goals — clean renewable energy, reliability, and reasonable rates.

Specifically,

  • The Societal Cost Test should include well-documented methane leakage in the gas generating system, which results in substantial climate damage.
  • Please use the Societal Cost Test in all proceedings relevant to DER’s starting when the decision is effective. You should not wait until the IRP evaluation is concluded in late 2021. California law has required that you include the health costs of fossil fuel generation since 1990. Only the Societal Cost Test includes these health costs.
  • Please update the Avoided Cost Calculator this year to incorporate the substantial avoided cost of long distance transmission due to clean local energy resources. In 2017 $2.6 billion of long distance transmission projects were canceled due to energy efficiency and residential rooftop solar.

The Social Cost of Carbon: Considerations and Disagreements in Climate Economics

  1. Necessity to electrify buildings ASAP, no more natural gas

Talking points:

  • The impacts of climate change are at our doorstep, and we must move quickly and thoughtfully to achieve the state’s ambitious and needed climate goals of carbon neutrality by 2045
  • The CEC’s recent Energy Report identifies buildings as a major roadblock to achieving our climate goals, and calls on state agencies to adopt policies to support electrification of gas end uses.
  • As the CEC identified, the PUC has a major role in transitioning our homes and buildings to operate safely and reliable at zero-emissions. Policies like rebates, rate reform, and pilots will go a long way to help ratepayers transition off gas.
  • However, we are concerned to hear from C4BES today, and to see their materials here. C4BES is a gas industry front group that ‘s putting CA at risk of slowing down our transition to zero-emissions technologies like heat pumps as well as trucks and buses.
  • C4BES advances a position that is not grounded in facts. C4BES, like SoCalGas, claims we don’t need to electrify buildings or transportation but that qw can instead rely on biomethane and power-to-gas and other far off and costly fossil-gas replacements. This simply is not the case. California’s supply of biomethane could at most replace 10% of gas use. Power-to-gas is a costly reach technology that could turn a clean source of energy like solar into a highly potent GHG (methane) that leaks from the gas system.
  • To achieve our climate and air quality goals, and to protect our communities from the safety risks of the gas system, I urge you to move forward with policies like incentives, rate reform, and pilots to speed deployment of zero-emission technologies, and to say no to investing more in expanding the gas system which will soon be a costly stranded asset.

Check the tweet from the gas company front group “Californians for Balanced Energy Solutions”  (C4BES) that are recruiting people who think cooking with gas is fine even though it is helping cook the planet and renewable energy will do the job and needs to be expedited.

350 Ventura County Calls for Strong Climate Action Plan

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General Meetings one or two per month, usually on Thursdays 6:30 pm - 8:30 pm Networking until 9 pm.