Here’s the good news: the latest solar-jobs census is out and finds there are more than 43,000 Californians working in the solar industry!

That’s more people than work at Southern California Edison, Pacific Gas & Electric, and San Diego Gas and Electric combined. And, rooftop solar is just getting going: more people installing solar means more jobs for California.

Now for the bad news: those same utilities want to stop rooftop solar dead in its tracks. They’re working overtime in Sacramento and San Francisco (home of the Public Utilities Commission) to slow the growth of solar.

We cannot let that happen–but it will if you don’t act now!

Tell Gov. Brown and other state leaders to stand up to the utility lobby and support rooftop solar!

Why are utilities fighting rooftop solar? Plain and simple: competition. With more middle-class families going solar in CA, that’s fewer and fewer customers and less demand for big dirty natural-gas plants (the cash cow of the California utility).

Rather than giving their customers what they want (can you say MORE ROOFTOP SOLAR?), they’re looking for ways to kill the competition. Sacrificing good-paying jobs, clean air, and energy savings that benefit you and me? That’s fine by them if it keeps their customers tied to a dirty and expensive energy bill.

Tell Gov. Brown and state leaders to stand up for solar and create good-paying jobs that support our families and communities!

We cannot afford to allow the utilities to slow the growth of solar–one sector of our economy that is growing–just because the utilities are threatened by competition.

California’s solar industry is creating good-paying jobs, increasing investments in our communities, and growing the tax base to help fund education, fire and police protection, and other important local government services we all rely on.

Don’t let the dirty utilities end Californian’s opportunity to go solar. Send a message to Gov. Brown and your state leaders today.

The Sierra Club has opposed two fracking bills in the legislature because each carries language that would put into statute trade-secret protections for fracking fluids; that is, that would allow oil and gas companies to withhold information about what chemicals they are injecting into the ground. Each also carries within that trade-secrets language a section that would create a gag on physicians that could delay or prevent dissemination of information about health hazards associated with fracking fluids.

Our friends at the Center for Biological Diversity and at Physicians for Social Responsibility-Los Angeles have also been overt opponents of the trade-secret and physician-gag pieces of the bills. Sierra Club national staff, including the legal team, have helped us develop our arguments, and Sierra Club California staff, interns, volunteers, and general activist members have all played a role in making sure the legislature knows where we stand on the trade-secrets issue.

One of the bills we have opposed, AB 7 (Wieckowscki), came up in Assembly Natural Resources Committee on June 12 and failed to get the votes it needed to get out. That means Sierra Club and our allies carried the day, thanks to all the help from so many parts of the Club.

If you have a chance, please send a hand-written thank-you note or quick call to Assemblymember Wesley Chesbro, who chairs that committee, and Assemblymember Nancy Skinner, who sits on the committee. Their “not voting” positions were important to kill the bill, and they care about what Sierra Club members think. You can find contact information for these legislators at http://assembly.ca.gov.

The other bill with same trades-secret problem is Sen. Fran Pavley’s SB 4, which has passed through the Senate and is now positioned to go through the Assembly committee and floor processes.

Below is our most recent oppose letter on AB 7. It explains our reasons for our trade-secret position.

June 10, 2013

The Honorable Bob Wieckowski
California Assembly
State Capitol Building
Sacramento, CA 95814

Re: AB 7 (Wieckowski)—Fracking—Opposed

Dear Assemblymember Wieckowski:

Thank you for the discussion you held last week regarding AB 7. Sierra Club California will continue to oppose the bill and I am sending this letter to highlight my organization’s opposition to the bill’s trade secrets provisions, the reasons for that opposition, and proposed bill language for an alternative approach to the trade secrets issue.

To be clear, Sierra Club California’s opposition to the trade secrets provisions in your AB 7 reflects the experience with fracking policy that Sierra Club members and staff members have had around the country. We have not come to this position quickly or lightly. It is borne of experience trying to ensure that fracking does not endanger public health or the environment, including water and air quality.

We oppose trade secrets protections for fracking fluids because such protections

a.) hinder the public’s ability to provide informed oversight of regulatory agency performance;

b.) prevent an accurate assessment of pre-fracking baseline conditions of soil and water and post-fracking results; and

c.) run contrary to other laws related to emissions into the environment.

On this last point, it’s worth noting that some have argued that fracking fluids should not be treated any differently from any other trade secret protected product. This assumes that products that emit toxics into the environment are the same as any other product. In fact, they are not. Numerous federal statutes explicitly disclaim trade secret exemptions for chemicals introduced into the environment, such as effluent discharges under the Clean Water Act and air emissions under the Clean Air Act. Because of the significant risk of chemicals used in fracking escaping to ground or surface water, and because soil contamination is inherent in their use, comprehensive disclosure is similarly necessary here.

Sierra Club urges that you eliminate the trade secrets provisions in AB 7, including the physicians’ gag, and instead amend into the bill language that will proactively protect the public’s right to know. Here is proposed language to replace Sec. 3203 (c):

An operator or supplier must disclose the chemical composition of additives as required by subsection (b), and the division shall make this information public, notwithstanding any provision of law relating to trade secrets or confidential business information, including but not limited to the Uniform Trade Secrets Act, Civil Code § 3426 et seq., the Public Records Act, Government Code § 6254.7 (d), and Section 1060 of the Evidence Code.

We ask you to provide this direction to ensure the public has needed access to the information to protect public health and the environment

Sincerely,

Kathryn Phillips
Director
[Sierra Club California]

Cc: Assembly Natural Resources Committee Members and Staff

Spring. Sunshine. PG&E bills. Climate change.

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Isn’t it time for you to check out the Sierra Club’s Solar Homes Campaign?

Spring. Sunshine. A $750 gift card for you when you sign the contract. $750 for the Sierra Club too.

Get your free, no-obligation information now at www.sierraclub.org/solarhomes.

On May 14 Gov. Brown released the May Revision of the 2013-14 budget. It’s short and not sweet. Specifically, the governor has decided to allow the Department of Finance to hold up to half a billion dollars in revenues from the cap-and-trade auction as a loan. That is, that money will not be spent on projects that will reduce greenhouse-gas emissions this year. The administration claims the loan will be repaid in a year, but no specific repayment schedule is outlined.

This is disappointing, to say the least. Holding the money as a loan makes the state budget look better, but diminishes the opportunity to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.

Sierra Club California director Kathryn Phillips stated, “This decision will delay opportunities to use those funds to capture critical reductions in global-warming pollution at a time when all science shows that we must reduce those emissions as much and as quickly as possible.

“This shift in funds is extraordinarily disappointing. The governor is using bizarre accounting to ‘balance’ the budget, and making future generations pay the price with climate disruption.”

Today the California Air Resources Board released its revenue investment plan for the cap-and-trade auction. Appendix B provides the easiest-to-read line-up of the kinds of projects that could be funded with the auction revenues.

A fracking facility. Photo by Shane Davis, Rocky Mountain Chapter, Sierra Club.

Three bills that would place a moratorium on fracking in California, until there is certainty that the practice isn’t harming public health and the environment, passed their first hurdle in the Assembly on April 29.

At a packed hearing of the Assembly Natural Resources Committee, environmental groups, environmental-justice organizations, and residents from around the state testified in favor of the three bills. Sierra Club California members and staff were there as well, supporting the bills.

The bills, AB 1301 by Richard Bloom (D-Santa Monica), AB 1323 by Holly Mitchell (D-Los Angeles), and AB 649 by Adrin Nazarian (D-Sherman Oaks), are evidence of the growing concern that hydraulic fracturing (fracking) is being conducted by the oil industry in California with virtually no regulatory oversight or monitoring.

Fracking is the practice of injecting harsh chemicals and pressure underground to break up rocks or other substrate to make it easier to capture oil or natural-gas deposits. In many parts of the country, fracking has been used in abundance to mine natural gas and the results have included groundwater and surface-water pollution, air pollution, and even earthquakes.

In California fracking has been used in more than 600 oil wells. Many people anticipate that fracking could escalate here as the Monterey Shale formation is exploited. That formation covers about 1,700 square miles, from Los Angeles County to the northern San Joaquin Valley and west to the coast.

Earlier this year, under pressure from advocacy groups, including the Sierra Club, the agency responsible for oil-well permitting, the Department of Oil, Gas, and Geothermal Resources (DOGGR), finally began a long process to develop fracking regulations. Early drafts of those regulations are disappointing, and Sierra Club volunteers have been among those who developed an extensive comment letter to the agency and then also showed up at workshops about the preliminary draft.

DOGGR’s history of essentially rubber-stamping oil permits that include fracking activity, and the weak condition of the preliminary regulations, underscore the need to place a moratorium on fracking. A time-out will help get California’s house in order.

The moratorium bills now move to the Assembly Appropriations Committee. There committee members and the chair, Assemblymember Mike Gatto (D-Silver Lake), will decide whether the bills will be let out of that committee and go to a floor vote.

reprinted from Capitol Voice, newsletter of Sierra Club California