The buzz in San Francisco is for green energy

Community Choice is taking big step forward

San Francisco is making major progress towards Community Choice Energy. The city is on the verge of legislation to make San Francisco a world leader in solar and renewable energy!

Due to intense grassroots pressure in the summer and fall, the mayor's office and the city's Public Utilities Commission have finally decided to prioritize energy. For the last month and a half, staff from both offices have been meeting regularly with Supervisors Ross Mirkarimi and Tom Ammiano, Paul Fenn (of Local Power and author of the state's Community Choice bill), and representatives of the Sierra Club and Greenpeace to work out technical details. On Dec. 15 this stakeholder group presented a progress report to the Supervisors' Finance Committee. The atmosphere was congratulatory on the progress made and the momentum for finishing the task. The Supervisors will vote early in the New Year. (A few remaining issues still need to be resolved in the new year.)

Adopting Community Choice will allow the city to contract with a new electricity provider, other than PG&E, giving us the ability to decide how much green energy we want! Our most recent victory is that the draft legislation states that the city will ask our new energy supplier for 360 megawatts of clean energy achieved through solar, wind, efficiency, and conservation. That is equivalent to powering every home in San Francisco with green energy!

The unique advantage of Community Choice is that every resident and business will be using renewable energy, not just those who can afford to put solar panels on their rooftops. The program we are pushing for in San Francisco will build the world's largest solar-energy network and ultimately generate half the city's electricity from renewable sources.

The Sierra Club Bay Chapter has made San Francisco energy one of its main campaigns. We have sent over 1,000 handwritten letters to City Hall and more than 60 people attended a mid-day Finance Committee hearing when the bill was introduced in September.

The two primary remaining issues are budget and staffing. For a program of this magnitude, the city must dedicate significant funds for start-up (to be paid back once the program is running), and will need dedicated staff with expertise and enthusiasm.

WhatYouCanDo

Help keep up the pressure on City Hall. Write to your supervisor and the mayor at:

San Francisco City Hall
One Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place
San Francisco, CA 94102.

Ask them to pass Community Choice Energy promptly in the New Year and to dedicate appropriate staffing and money to make the program a success.

In addition to assuring the passage and strong implementation of Community Choice Energy, we have several other clean-energy projects brewing. For all of you waiting to join in the Chapter's clean-energy campaign, for San Francisco - and for all the rest of the Chapter too - we will be holding an Energy Event to Kick Off 2006. For the time and place of the event, to get on the Chapter's energy e-mail list, or to join in any way in our energy campaigns, see the Chapter web site (an event announcement will be on the home page), or contact Cathleen Sullivan at (510) 848-0800, ext. 316, or email cathleen-at-sfbaysc.org

Cathleen Sullivan, Bay Chapter conservation organizer