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The
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Observations
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Political
and Social Commentary by Dave Satre
| Who’s Lying about Proposition 7 ? Big Energy is Spending $$ millions to Defeat Renewable Energy California’s Proposition Seven supports the development and use of solar, wind, geothermal and other renewable technologies currently under development. This is an essential step toward breaking America’s dependency on foreign oil and reducing green house gases. Renewable energy should help America recover from its dependency on foreign oil and the resulting high gas prices and heating costs. It will also aid the effort to combat pollution, climate change and global warming as well as control corruption in the Energy and Oil Industries. Who stands to lose from the passage of Prop 7? Today’s utility companies, the coal industry and the oil industry. Pacific Gas & Electric Corp, Edison International and Sempra Energy have spent over $28 million in an attempt to defeat the measure. Prop 7 will encourage the development and use of renewable energy technologies by requiring all utilities to generate 40 percent of their power from renewable power sources by 2020 and 50 percent by 2025. It shortens the approval process for the development of large renewable-power plants that will compete with Big Energy and provide lower prices for the consumer. It also shifts some regulatory authority over the industry, including the authority for permitting the construction of transmission lines from the Public Utilities Commission to the Energy Commission. This is apparently a big issue with the energy utilities. The proposition also challenges public utilities to match the current regulations requiring private utilities to generate 20% of their electricity from renewable sources by 2010. The energy companies are currently way behind schedule in the development of alternative energy technologies and they have deliberately avoided implementing the pollution regulations established during the Clinton administration. Bush has encouraged this by favoring the energy and petroleum industries to the detriment of local and global environmental efforts. Ken Lay, the ex Enron CEO responsible for the California energy fiasco during the Gray Davis administration, actually wrote Bush’s first energy policy. The official committee opposing Prop. 7 is the Californians Against Another Costly Energy Scheme. The group is employing the typical lies and false accusations so popular with today’s Republican candidates. The committee claims in its wide-spread television campaign that Prop Seven will harm small-scale renewable energy companies. The supporters of Prop Seven say it will aid the alternative energy industry and does not limit projects to energy companies producing over 30 megawatts, as claimed by opponents. Prop 7 would make California the world leader in clean power technology and would create over 370,000 new high wage jobs in the state. It will also strengthen penalties for utility non-compliance by eliminating the current cap on penalties imposed by the Public Utilities Commission Ignore the lies and vote for a future with clean air and no dependency on foreign oil. David Satre All Commercial Rights Reserved More Info: LA Times
California Propositions.org Cal Access
Napa Valley Register League of Women Voters of California |