CEC to Tackle Barriers to Energy Efficiency Access
Bye, Bye By-Right
Hope-building Tidbits Worth Sharing
CEC to Tackle Barriers to Energy Efficiency Access
By Edward Moreno
As one of the requirements of the landmark legislation Senate Bill 350 (de León), the California Energy Commission (CEC) is to develop a study, by January 1, 2017, that will identify access barriers to renewable and energy efficient technology in low-income communities and how to overcome those barriers.
In early June, the CEC held its first stakeholder workshop of many planned this year to solicit information for its study. At this meeting in Sacramento, Sierra Club California staff, along with various community-based organizations including environmental justice groups, provided advice for developing a road map to maximize community participation in the study.
Three crucial points that need to be addressed to develop a strong study emerged:
- The ability to accurately and effectively identify the Californians that most need assistance in accessing energy efficiency tools.
- The ability to draw those Californians most in need to meetings designed to inform the study researchers
- The ability to keep people who attend those meetings engaged and invested enough in the project to provide information and offer ideas.
Keeping these points in mind, the CEC staff will organize upcoming workshops in other cities where Californians can tell the researchers what they perceive as the barriers to their own access to efficiency tools, and which benefits of these tools are most important to them.
The workshop schedule will be posted on the CEC’s website. Sierra Club members around the state who are interested in energy efficiency and renewable technology should plan to attend a workshop near them.
In May, Governor Jerry Brown unveiled a confusing proposal his staff said was designed to increase housing in the state. Unfortunately, the proposal came with two nasty strings attached.
First, it required local governments, residents and even state agencies to forsake their ability to review projects and curb environmental and public health impacts on any housing development. In other words, developers could start building “by right” if the development fit into the zoning of the general plan.
Second, the proposal required the legislature to accept the first string before the governor would sign off on one-time new funding for affordable housing.
In other words, housing money was held hostage by the administration.
The governor’s proposal evolved into Trailer Bill 707 as part of the budget discussion. Fortunately, not everyone in the legislature was enamored with the proposal. Strong voices, including that of Speaker Anthony Rendon, Senate Budget Chair Mark Leno, Senator Steve Glazer, and Senator Jim Nielsen, helped push back on the governor’s trailer bill.
As a result of that, plus strong complaints by environmentalists and labor organizations, including Sierra Club members (about 6,500 weighed in via our alert system), at the end of the budget debate in June, $400 million in affordable housing funding was set aside while the trailer bill language continues to be negotiated. Sometime in August, a new bill is expected to be introduced that will contain the product of the negotiations.
What specifically are the problem areas in the bill that prompted such protest? Stated in quick bullet form, the answer is that the bill:
- Uses a nonsensical definition of infill that would encourage sprawl;
- Threatens to undercut the California Coastal Act;
- Is available for buildings that have up to 95% of their units reserved for luxury development;
- Cuts the public out of the review and permitting process entirely; and
- Potentially threatens sources of funding necessary to maintain local infrastructure.
There are currently 14 exemptions from the California Environmental Quality Act to encourage affordable infill development. On its surface, this latest bill seems less determined to add affordable housing than it does to just more aggressively exclude the public from development review.
Hope-building Tidbits Worth Sharing
Sometimes things come to us via email that are too encouraging not to share. Here are a couple that we think you might want to know about:
How to Train Electricians for the New World
California is a leader in renewable energy and energy efficiency. And plans are afoot at regulatory agencies to motivate commercial building owners to adopt efficiency measures that will move their existing and new buildings toward zero-net energy use.
One of the critical ingredients in moving toward greater efficiency are workers who know the latest about clean energy and energy efficiency technologies. That’s why a building completed earlier this year is so important.
That building is the Net Zero Plus Electric Training Institute that opened in Los Angeles in May. The 144,000 square-foot building is a training center for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, and serves as a living laboratory. About 1,500 apprentices, journeymen and contractors are expected to be trained there each year.
You can read more about this cool building and its hot features here.
Encouraging Data and Graphs Galore, Oh My!
Since its founding in 2003, Next 10, a nonpartisan organization dedicated to improving California’s future, has published a nearly annual California Green Innovation Index. The report is packed with data about California’s progress on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, increasing renewable energy, driving electric vehicles and embracing energy efficiency.
The 8th version of the Index was released on June 29th. Its contents are both interesting and encouraging. Suffice it to say, it all adds up to progress and reflects the results of much work done by Sierra Club members to make the state a greener place.
You can find that report here.
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