HANC has been a supporter of CleanPower SF (CPSF) [aka Community Choice Aggregation(CCA)] in San Francisco since 2006. It is a program passed by the CA Legislature in 2000 under AB 117 (Migden, D-San Francisco). Its prime purpose is to stabilize and reduce electricity rates over time plus provide complete independence from PG&E on just the procuring of electricity from outside competitive sources on the open market. Currently, PG&E provides both procurement and installation/delivery/maintenance/billing/repairs (which is not affected under CPSF)
Existing CCA programs in Marin and Sonoma counties are already meeting and beating PG&E rates and benefitting residents and business. And, these rates will continue to go down.
Getting CPSF implemented has been a hard fought battle that continues today rife with politics from SF to Sacramento involving Mayor Edwin Lee. He has been able to alienate organized labor unions and is a proponent to take apart CPSF using AB 2145 (Bradford, D-Gardena). It passed the Assembly on May 28th due to erroneous rhetoric by Mr. Bradford.
AB 2145 is now headed to the Senate where it needs to fail if we are to be able to benefit from CPSF. There is some confusing rhetoric coming from opponents of CPSF/CCA.
Take Action by contacting your California Senator and tell her/him to OPPOSE AB 2145 http://goo.gl/nt7cy1
If you do not live in CA, please sign the petition at http://goo.gl/KcykvW
Go to http://No2145.org for more information.
UPDATE: Big Victory! But not done yet -- The final Senate Energy Cmte amendments were posted 7/2/2014. We were successful in removing the Mayor's suggestion to the Board of Supervisors in Sept 2013 contained in the bill to reverse automatic opt-in which would kill all CCA's in California, thus seriously preventing ratepayers from stable and cheaper energy rates and clean renewable power. Senate Energy Committee staff found this to be unlawful.
Three other provisions are equally of concern: a limit on helping other cities benefit from CCA;a requirement forcing CCAs to publish 5-year rate plans which PG&E is not required to do and cannot be projected by anyone; a complaint process to go through CA-PUC which will cause long delays in resolution which should be done at the individual CCA level.
WHAT: This bill was put forth by PG&E and their friends including their own union. The majority of other types of unions have stayed out of this as rank and file are ratepayers who would be affected by this bill, too. Over 200 municipalities and membership organizations oppose AB2145.
ACTION: This bill is NOT necessary. We need to stop this bill in Senate Appropriations in August. Please check http://No2145.org or http://hanc-sf.org regularly for more info on how you can help send the message to Appropriations members to vote: NO on AB2145.)
(HANC is a member of San Francisco Clean Energy Advocates which includes LocalCleanEnergy.org Alliance, 350Bayarea.org, SierraClub.org, Our-City.org, SFGreenParty.org. SFCEA is a member of a statewide coalition to protect CCA)