Community Choice is a bold new idea in energy

Opponents to Community Choice Energy — a plan allowing the East Bay cities to pool their customer resources and purchase or produce green renewable energy at competitive prices to PG&E — would have you believe that by considering the plan, we will be preventing the city from fighting crime, dealing with the foreclosure crisis, and providing basic services. ("Choice Aggregation a bad deal for Oakland," Joe Haraburda, Dec. 8)

In fact, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and increasing the amount of electricity generated by renewable resources are both mandated by state law (AB32, SB 1078 and SB 107).

Hence, the city of Oakland is exploring ways it can comply with existing state law, thereby reducing the risk of future fines for non-compliance with state climate action goals. CCE offers cities one of the most effective tools for reducing its greenhouse gas emissions.

It's much easier for cities and municipalities to make changes to their electricity supply than to mandate and enforce changes in people's driving habits or car preferences.

A CCE program would be run by a third party power purchasing and procurement entity — like a local power management firm, or even a utility like EBMUD. Moving to Community Choice would create opportunities for local green energy companies to build new reneweable generation, as well as provide workforce development opportunties in solar installation,
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energy efficiency, and conservation.

The incoming Obama administration has already made clear that we cannot simply rest on our laurels and continue with "business as usual." We must be open to new ideas. Bold new ideas invariably require substantial effort and a willingness to undertake risks in the short term for the possibility of increased security later on.

The important thing is to study important new opportunities such as CCE and make an informed choice based on an unbiased assessment of the costs and risks of moving forward versus those of doing nothing.

The Community Choice opportunity, one scenario of which was put forth in the East Bay Cities Community Choice Business Plan released in October 2008, merits further consideration. We encourage the city to continue to study CCE as a way of greening our power grid, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and creating local "green jobs".

Kent Lewandowski is chair, Sierra Club Northern Alameda County group, and David Room is coordinator, Local Clean Energy Alliance.