Emergency! Solar bills gutted & high utility bills will follow! Call state legislators TODAY and Monday

Please share widely!

(From Indivisible CA Green Team) On April 17, Assembly Energy Chair Petrie-Norris allowed poison pill amendments to AB 2256 and AB 2619, gutting two great bills that would have required the CPUC to include all the benefits of rooftop solar in their NEM proposal. These amendments were so unacceptable that both authors had to pull their bills.

This coming Wednesday, April 24, we have another shot. AB 2256 is on the agenda, and Assemblymember Jacqui Irwin’s bill – AB 1999, the repeal of the utility tax, needs to be heard, as well. We need everyone to call Asm Petrie-Norris to pass these 2 bills with no amendments and our own assemblymembers to have them apply pressure! The utilities are doing everything to kill these bills that harm their profits so that our rates can continue to go up with no end in sight. (First post on this issue here.) Note:

Everyone, even non-constituents, can call Ass. Petrie-Norris, as she is the chair of the committee.
Speak for yourself and/or behalf of any groups you belong to, as either a leader or member. (Indivisible Ventura is one of the 300 nonprofit groups who submitted a letter in support AB 1999)
We need many many calls. This is a make or break moment.

Two scripts – 35 seconds each – We timed them!

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Stop the utilities’ money grab! Take rooftop solar back!

We need your calls today and Monday! CA should be a leader in rooftop solar and it should be affordable for everyone!

After our utilities and our CA Public Utility Commission colluded to tank our solar industry and eliminate 17,000 good jobs, a group of state lawmakers are proposing to get rooftop solar growing again while also protecting our right to make solar energy without taxes or penalties. The hearings on this are next week, Tuesday and Wednesday. The utilities are pulling out all stops to kill our important bills, especially AB 1999, the repeal of the utility tax.

Call your state assemblymember and senator to tell them to pass these bills and get rooftop solar growing again.

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More CA bills – maybe they thought no one would notice these attacks on rooftop solar…

More sneaky plays by our fossil fuel industry friends…

Action #1: “Best intentions run amok” or deliberate sabotage by the utilities’ monopoly? Doesn’t matter! “NO” on SB-1385.

Among the hundreds of bills our legislators are considering, very few have led to groups not normally on the same side – including tenants’ advocacy organizations, property owners, property managers, builders, and non-profit affordable housing developers – to come together. But this is the case here: all oppose SB 1385. This is not a serious proposal to address either the existential crisis of climate change or our state’s housing unaffordability crisis. By competing with existing, successful rooftop solar programs to give hundreds of thousands of tenants in multi-family housing access to solar thus helping reduce the cost of their utility bills, SB 1385 actually makes matters worse. (Read more here)

Minimal script for your state senator: I’m calling from [zip code] and I want Senator [___] to vote “NO” on (SB 1385) Local planning: housing: commercial zones.

Action #2: OK – this one is a straight-out attack on rooftop solar. “NO” on AB-2143.

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The CA Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) is trying to burn down solar.

Quote here.

Action #1: Stop them!

Just as the Biden Administration is working to catch up to CA’s ambitious climate plan, our own California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), wants to slam the brakes and impose the harshest penalty fees on solar users of any state.

They moan that the solar panel owners are forcing others to pay more than $200 a year in additional costs to maintain the network. Their answer to solving this issue? Helping EVERYBODY get access to solar panels?

Hahahahahaha, no!

Their solution is to make solar users pay an average of $57 per month, nearly $700 per year, taking solar energy out of reach of the low-income consumers they pretend to care about. Meanwhile, no one’s utility bills will go down, we’ll be left more vulnerable to climate-change power interruptions and pollution, the solar industry will implode AND utility interests will make a huge profit! Business as usual for an agency repeatedly accused of corruption and mismanagement. Here’s how we fight back!

The CPUC’s proposal is a near-carbon copy of what PG&E and the other utilities have pushed for months. If Gov. Newsom doesn’t step in, these changes will be finalized by January 27th and go into effect this spring. More details are below.

ASK #1: Please call Governor Newsom’s office today (9 am – 5 pm weekdays). Even if you already made a call, do it again and get your friends to phone tree this baby. We need to flood his office with calls this week.

Sample script: My name is ___ and I live in ____. I am against the proposed Solar Penalty Fee and I’m against slashing the value of rooftop solar 80%! Nobody should pay a penalty for putting solar panels on their roof and our climate-change driven fires, blackouts and pollution show that California should be doing more, not less, to promote rooftop solar. Say no to the utilities’ profit grab, and yes to actively assisting millions of our working and middle class residents to access solar technology for their homes.

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11/23 – Continuing actions this week!

Update! We, along with 68 other CA groups, made the national news!

(theHill)“A coalition of nearly 70 California progressive grassroots groups urged Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) either to call for the “swift passage” of both the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act by the end of this month or to resign.“ (Letter attached at the bottom of this post.)

Action #1: Dear Senator Feinstein, it’s time to drop the filibuster for the “Freedom to Vote Act” and the “John Lewis Voting Rights Act.” And postpone your holiday until AFTER the BBB Act is passed.
Action #2: Dear Governor Newsom, We need you to step up for solar…
Action #3: Write a comment to protect DACA recipients – DEADLINE November 29 at 11:59 pm EST

We’ve just had another infuriating episode of #WhiteTearsWin. Kyle “Property over People” Rittenhouse walked away with 2 dead and one permanently damaged body in his wake, along with what Anthony Huber’s parents stated is “the unacceptable message that armed civilians can show up in any town, incite violence, and then use the danger they have created to justify shooting people in the street.” Hopefully his victims’ families will be able to sue him for damages in a civil trial, but that’s cold comfort. If an action comes from this, we will bring it forward.

Meanwhile, we need to take a moment to focus on some wins (see our header above), and the work we need to do next. Some of these you can do during business hours today or Monday, and all have an component you can do this weekend.

Action #1: Dear Senator Feinstein, it’s time to drop the filibuster for the “Freedom to Vote Act” and the “John Lewis Voting Rights Act.” And postpone your holiday until AFTER the BBB Act is passed.

We know from early on in our Indivisible movement that Feinstein will move if enough people flood her office with comments. (Yes, she was ready to rubber-stamp that horrid Jeff Sessions as Attorney General before we’all found out.) So make her phones ring in every office, it really only takes minutes to contact them all and say the short phone script. (Program your phone to save time! “MOC” = “Member of Congress”) Then fill up her email box over the weekend and make ourselves HEARD!

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Utility companies are using AB 1139 to kill CA’s rooftop solar industry. Our legislators are letting it happen!

We just called our assemblymember’s office and we’re told they are studying this NOW! Get on the phone. Email them too. Make sure they know that this is important to us.

Action #1: How many ways can we say “NO” to AB-1139?

This bad legislation just slid through the Assembly Appropriations Committee! Make sure your assemblymember AND YOUR STATE SENATOR are prepared to do the right thing and bring it down!

(from Indivisible CA Green Team) Consumers suffer when power is concentrated in the hands of a few. This was the lesson learned from the 2000 electricity crisis and out of that grew California’s commitment to consumer solar and localized energy. However, the potential for additional revenue is forcing us to repeat history as lobbyists for PG&E, SDG&E AND SoCal Edison are telling Sacto politicians that our solar is the reason why utility bills are skyrocketing. Investor-owned utilities like P,G&E are threatened by this people-centered movement cutting into their profits, so they’re making up lies to justify killing our solar, even though it is the solution to rising utility bills, power outages, and wildfires.

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AB 1139 is an investor-owned utility proposal to kill rooftop solar in CA. Seriously.

“NO” on AB-1139 – “Utilities are threatened by solar panels because it cuts into their profits. Tell your legislator to stop their profit grab.

(from Indivisible CA Green Team) Consumers suffer when power is concentrated in the hands of a few. This was the lesson learned from the 2000 electricity crisis and out of that grew California’s commitment to consumer solar and localized energy.

Continue reading →