The Rush Is On

The Legislature has returned from their summer recess and bills are moving at full speed. The whirlwind last month is underway, but as energy legislation goes, it has become a rather docile year. At the beginning of the session we anticipated bills that would dramatically revamp the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), put a moratorium on fracking, do something big for solar energy, and provide huge funding for combined heat and power and efficiency. By now it is clear that a billion dollars slated for energy projects has disappeared forever into the morass of the General Fund, all of the moratoria on fracking bills died in committee, the big solar benefit bills have been diluted, and the fever to revamp CEQA has broken. Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D – Sacramento) has put a calming influence over the CEQA brouhaha, shepherding his own SB 731 through the process while competing bills magically have fallen before him. SB 731 takes a very moderate approach to CEQA “reform,” requiring a few reports, and significantly, removing aesthetics as a cause for a finding of significant impact. This may be all the law needs to eliminate many of the frivolous CEQA-based lawsuits that have been its bane. If something more than this is needed, there will be plenty of CEQA bills introduced next year, as there always are, providing ample vehicles for any necessary tweaks. Not everyone agrees with this assessment, as yesterday some 50 activist groups including Sierra Club California, League of Women Voters (CA), and the Planning and Conservation League sent a letter to Governor Brown opposing proposals from his office to expedite commercial development at the expense of environmental protections. Senator Lois Wolk’s (D – Davis) SB 43 creates the Green Tariff Shared Renewables Program, allowing people such as renters without access to a rooftop, for example, to participate in a renewable energy project development, though it has been significantly watered down from its original form from an ownership, self-generation, bill offset program to a utility-designed green tariff. Henry Perea’s (D – Fresno) AB 327 started out life as an effort to repeal the legal restrictions on raising residential rates that were passed in the wake of the 2001 so-called “Energy Crisis” including restrictions designed to protect low-income customers (CARE rates). As it has been amended it has gained a fixed electricity charge authorization, which has drawn opposition from environmental groups, who see such rate designs as anti-conservation and anti-solar, and may be a setback for net metering. It has been added to COG ’s watch list as it now may have a direct effect on distributed generation. Fracking bills that involved a moratorium have all died in committee, and the only fracking bill left standing at this point is Fran Pavley’s (D – Calabasas) SB 4 . SB 4 would provide much tighter regulation of well-drilling, but would not prohibit it. Despite a requirement for full disclosure of well stimulation treatment chemicals, the bill would allow trade secret protection. Support groups as you might expect include environmental organizations, municipalities, good government groups, while opposition includes strange bedfellows such as the American Chemistry Council, the Sierra Club, Western States Petroleum Association, and the Food and Water Watch. August 30 is the deadline for bills to pass out of their fiscal committees, then floor sessions, and finally, September 13 the Legislature will go into "Interim Study Recess" -- the period of time between the two halves of the two-year session.

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The Rush Is On

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