California Proposition 7 – Bumbling Billionaires Accidentally Destroy Alternative Energy Industry

Prop. 7 would require every electric utility in the state to provide 50% of their electricity through solar or alternative energy sources by 2025. Sounds good right? Sure. Except there won’t be any solar power companies left in the state to supply it. Prop. 7 is so badly written, that if enacted, it would drive all the solar producers out of business.

Prop. 7 is funded by father-and-son Arizona billionaires, Peter and John Sperling, it is a well-intended law, it’s called “The Solar and Clean Energy Act” which sounds nice, but there’s one problem, as reported in the San Jose Mercury News:

The Sperlings mean well, says Ralph Cavanaugh of the Natural Resources Defense Council. But they didn’t consult with energy producers or environmental experts before writing a long, complex, hard-to-amend law. “It was simple ineptitude,” he says.

Well-meaning ineptitude is the best way to describe Prop. 7.

If Prop. 7 passes, any energy acquired by utilities from solar producers who generate less than 30 megawatts won’t count towards the 50% requirement. Right now, electric utilities get 80% of their solar energy from producers who generate less than 30 megawatts. If Prop.7 passes, the utilities will be forced to abandon these small producers. The small producers will go out of business and the utilities will start from scratch by building their own solar power sources. California will literally be back at square one in alternative energy and the whole business would be controlled by the electric companies.

The Sperlings claim that they didn’t mean for the law to come out this way, the courts won’t care what the Sperlings intended. At the end of the day, the plain language of the law controls and the only way to change it will be by 2/3 vote of the legislature or another ballot measure — neither of of which will happen.

If Prop. 7 passes, the alternative energy industry will be in the hands of California’s utilities and consolidating the alternative energy into a few major players is the worst thing that can happen right now. This is an industry that is just getting off the ground. We like Hot, Flat, and Crowded author Thomas Friedman’s idea:

“In every garage we have 100,000 people trying 100,000 things, five of which might work, and two might be the next green Google. But I don’t want a Manhattan Project of 12 people in Los Alamos. I want it to be like the IT revolution: everyone becoming a programmer. Only in this case, it’s everyone becoming a green innovator. What IT was to the 80s and 90s, ET, energy technology, will be to the early 21st century.

Prop. 7 is also remarkable for the amazing array of alliances. Everybody is against this thing. The list is worth checking out: The Democrats and The Republicans are against it, all the fringe parties are against it, every environmental interest is against it right alongside every local chamber of commerce, every renewable energy provider, every local government, even the right-wing “taxpayer associations” are against this thing.

One of these days maybe we’ll have a ballot measures that requires people to know what the hell they’re doing before submitting ballot measures.Until then, vote against the well-meaning ineptitude of Prop. 7

The Johnny California Editorial Board recommends a NO vote against Prop. 7.