Local Clean Energy Alliance of the Bay Area

On Thursday, January 28^th, rooftop solar advocates chalked up a major victory as the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) voted to adopt new rules that preserve net energy metering (NEM) in the state.

The decision was a notable defeat for the state’s three investor-owned utilities (IOUs), which had lobbied hard to increase energy bills for rooftop solar customers by instituting monthly flat fees and reducing the rate of compensation for solar-generated electricity.

As 2016 winds up and the Environmental Justice movement gathers global traction, we must fight for energy democracy at home. 

We at the Local Clean Energy Alliance have spent the past year working tirelessly to shift the energy paradigm from the current extractive centralized model to one of decentralized energy under democratic control. We are in the middle of an important uphill battle, at the local, state, and national level to establish community-based energy programs, and we must not stop now!

This is an appeal to join us. We need your membership and support to ensure that this work goes forward. Please, contribute to the Local Clean Energy Alliance, and by giving at least $25 you can become a member as well!

On Monday, September 21^st 2015, the Oakland City Council held a special hearing on the health and safety impacts of coal exports out of the Oakland Army Base. According to Oakland City Clerk LaTonda Simmons, 694 individuals signed up to speak, drawing strong support and opposition to the proposed export plan; labor leaders, CEOs, professors, community members, and pastors all arrived to speak on this issue.

Ultimately, the debate revolved around "coal versus jobs," with many Oakland community leaders demanding (rightly) that jobs be created for the residents of West Oakland. No coal in Oakland activists, however, want the kind of jobs that maintain a healthy Oakland and planet. The development project itself is not the problem. The problem is the exportation of hazardous fossil fuels.

On May 5th, the Alameda County Board of Supervisors met to finalize a Steering Committee of community stakeholders to oversee the county’s Community Choice energy program, which is now being called East Bay Community Energy. Having a Steering Committee that is representative of the diversity of Alameda County is critical to the legitimacy and success of the overall program, which aims to launch in the Spring of 2017.

Many members of the Clean Energy & Jobs Oakland Campaign and the East Bay Clean Power Alliance attended the May 5 meeting to ask the Board of Supervisors to vote down their list of Steering Committee nominees due to a clear lack of diversity in the list. For example, out of 21 nominees, only four were women. Similarly, there was a significant absence of diversity in the sectors represented. While the Board rejected applications by many representatives of organized labor, four from one union, IBEW, were nominated (one appointment each from four of the five Supervisors).

The 2015 Clean Power, Healthy Communities Conference

Clean energy leaders from across the United States gathered in Oakland, California on March 5, 2015, to discuss how to advance community-based alternatives to the centralized corporate energy model.

The Clean Power, Healthy Communities Conference, hosted by the Local Clean Energy Alliance, brought together 150 clean energy advocates and a national webcast audience in an inspiring day of deliberations on strategies for democratizing our energy system.

Kirsten Schwind, Local Clean Energy Alliance (LCEA) Steering Committee member, Al Weinrub, LCEA Coordinator, and Colin Miller, Clean Energy & Jobs Oakland Coordinator celebrate the AB 2145 victory.

As the final gavel fell on this year’s state Senate legislative session at 3am on August 30, AB 2145, the bill meant to kill Community Choice energy programs in California, met its own well-deserved demise. This result was a stunning victory for community-based energy advocates.

AB 2145, the monopoly utility bill meant to kill Community Choice energy programs in California, continues to move forward in the State legislature.  On Thursday, August 14, despite the best efforts of a broad coalition opposing the bill, AB 2145 passed out of the Senate Appropriations Committee and is now headed for a full floor vote before the end of August.

However, the Appropriations Committee amended the bill, further weakening it. The new language removes a five-year rate setting requirement for Community Choice programs, signalling another victory for Californians for Energy Choice, the broad statewide coalition of over 150 local government, environmental, social equity, business, and labor groups.

On June 23 AB 2145 passed out of the California Senate’s Energy Committee somewhat weakened but still tremendously lethal.

The  bill, introduced by powerful corporate forces, is meant to kill Community Choice energy programs in California.

Despite a powerful statewide effort to bury AB 2145 in the Senate Committee (see for example, the June 19 Oakland protest), the bill emerged intact, but in an amended form. While its most problematic provision (opt-in) was removed, AB 2145 still contains two caustic provisions, and a newly proposed, anti-competitive geographical limitation.

It is now headed to the Senate Appropriations Committee for action on August 4.

On June 19, a spritied noon-time crowd of over sixty people rallied outside PG&E’s Webster Street payment center in downtown Oakland to protest PG&E's backing of AB 2145, the Monopoly Utility Power Grab of 2014. The bill is meant to prevent the establishment of new community-based energy programs under California's 2002 Community Choice energy law.

The rally, organized by the Local Clean Energy Alliance and the Sierra Club Bay Chapter, demanded that PG&E stop using ratepayer dollars to undermine the Community Choice energy law, thereby denying communities a greener and lower priced alternative to PG&E electricity.