Sorry if this is overly political, but...
I'm pleased to see one state proposition get rejected by the electorate this week.
It's California Proposition 16, which stipulates that it would require a 2/3 majority vote of a community before the local government could investigate the feasibility of starting up a municipal power company.
Why am I pleased? Because the proposition was one of the most cynical and misleading to come along in a long time. The state's largest utility, Pacific Gas and Electric, which has a virtual monopoly on power in Northern California, wrote it and then pumped $46 million into a campaign to get it passed. We were saturated with misleading ads that implied that local governments were completely out of control and about to spend millions to pursue publicly owned power companies without voter approval.
The background on this is a bit more complex, of course. In 2002 a state law was passed that allows communities to get into power purchasing and redistribution agreements. Marin County in the north bay area recently did just that, focusing on acquiring "green" generated power.
Prop 16 would have made it nearly impossible for communities to follow Marin's lead.
The campaign against Prop 16 was funded to the tune of some $90,000. About 1/500th of the amount that PG&E wasted on the campaign. It's nice, once in a while, to see that money can't buy EVERYTHING.
Where I think PG&E went wrong is that it went overboard on the measure. Instead of just a simple majority, or even a 3/5 majority, instead it went all out for a 2/3 requirement, and probably figured it could spend its way (with rate-payer's money, no less) to victory.
And perhaps voters remembered that this is the same PG&E that gave its top execs big fat bonuses on the same day it declared bankruptcy back in 2002... after making all the wrong moves in the big electricity de-regulation swindle of 2000-2001 (it bought power plants at a premium in the 90's and then sold them for a big loss, only to have to purchase power at a premium from them on the spot market when Enron and company started manipulating power prices).
Now, I really don't hate PG&E - they do a credible job of providing power, albeit at inflated rates and with generally poor planning. They just don't seem to be any better managed today than they were before the energy crisis started.
I'm pleased to see one state proposition get rejected by the electorate this week.
It's California Proposition 16, which stipulates that it would require a 2/3 majority vote of a community before the local government could investigate the feasibility of starting up a municipal power company.
Why am I pleased? Because the proposition was one of the most cynical and misleading to come along in a long time. The state's largest utility, Pacific Gas and Electric, which has a virtual monopoly on power in Northern California, wrote it and then pumped $46 million into a campaign to get it passed. We were saturated with misleading ads that implied that local governments were completely out of control and about to spend millions to pursue publicly owned power companies without voter approval.
The background on this is a bit more complex, of course. In 2002 a state law was passed that allows communities to get into power purchasing and redistribution agreements. Marin County in the north bay area recently did just that, focusing on acquiring "green" generated power.
Prop 16 would have made it nearly impossible for communities to follow Marin's lead.
The campaign against Prop 16 was funded to the tune of some $90,000. About 1/500th of the amount that PG&E wasted on the campaign. It's nice, once in a while, to see that money can't buy EVERYTHING.
Where I think PG&E went wrong is that it went overboard on the measure. Instead of just a simple majority, or even a 3/5 majority, instead it went all out for a 2/3 requirement, and probably figured it could spend its way (with rate-payer's money, no less) to victory.
And perhaps voters remembered that this is the same PG&E that gave its top execs big fat bonuses on the same day it declared bankruptcy back in 2002... after making all the wrong moves in the big electricity de-regulation swindle of 2000-2001 (it bought power plants at a premium in the 90's and then sold them for a big loss, only to have to purchase power at a premium from them on the spot market when Enron and company started manipulating power prices).
Now, I really don't hate PG&E - they do a credible job of providing power, albeit at inflated rates and with generally poor planning. They just don't seem to be any better managed today than they were before the energy crisis started.
