Stop PG&E’s alarming ballot measure
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San Francisco Bay Guardian: One of the greatest threats to public power in a generation is quietly working its way toward the California ballot. A proposed initiative that would require two-thirds of the voters to approve any sort of public electricity measure, including community choice aggregation (CCA), has been submitted to the state attorney general's office. And Pacific Gas and Electric Co.'s fingerprints are all over it. There's no doubt whatsoever that this measure is designed to derail successful CCA efforts in places like Marin County and San Francisco, where the supervisors are moving forward to set up the equivalent of a buyer's co-op for electricity. A San Francisco CCA would offer lower costs and much greener power — and would give the city far more control over its energy future. The measure could also hamper the efforts of existing public power agencies to expand their territories or offer service to new customers. The state Legislature approved a bill back in 2002 allowing California cities to replace private utility service with CCAs — and the bill included language barring PG&E and the other giant electricity companies in the state from spending money to undermine CCA efforts. In other words, it's illegal for PG&E to use its immense resources and lobbying clout to try to block San Francisco's efforts. And PG&E has spent tens of millions of dollars in San Francisco, Davis, and elsewhere trying to block public-power programs. So now the utility is going to the state ballot, where a campaign with enough money on an issue that's sufficiently complicated can often pass. The law firm that filed the initiative papers, Neilsen Merksama (a political powerhouse that represents, among others, PG&E) won't divulge much about the funding sources — except to say that the filing fee came from ... PG&E. So there's little doubt the measure will have the funds it needs to gather more than 600,000 signatures and mount a campaign of lies and disinformation.
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