Referendum by Riches

So Proposition 10 isn’t the only Billionaire-backed “Clean Energy” initiative on the November ballot, there’s also Prop 7, called the Solar and Clean Energy Initiative, which is also basically completely financed by another out of state billionaire, Arizonan Peter Sperling, the owner of the University of Pheonix.

Prop 7 intends to mandate that the utilities in California acquire their power from at least 50% renewable sources by 2050. Currently the state’s mandate, called a renewable portfolio standard or RPS, is 20% by 2010. So here’s my take on Prop 7, it’s super complicated at 70 pages long, short-cuts public oversight by limiting the time allowed for public hearings to only 100 days, and will certainly raise all consumers’ rates. California is the national leader in the adoption of renewable energy for stationary power as a result of a long and sometimes painful process involving the utility companies, the environmental groups and the CleanTech industry. As the head of one of the biggest municipal utilities in the state told me: “We had a deal. We worked it out and we’re completely behind the current RPS. When we hit our goal in 2010, we all expected to sit back down again and raise the bar, but this Prop 7 upsets years of planning on everyone’s part.”

To me the bottom line is this: if Prop 7 is such a great idea, why isn’t Sperling doing it in Arizona which is lagging far behind California in adopting clean energy?

Here’s a great article on my site that lays it all out from the San Diego Union Tribune.

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