Comments on: Prop 16. PG&E’s Trojan Horse?

By: Larry Gilbert

Larry Gilbert — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 21:12:17 +0000

My sentiments exactly. That is why I recommended a NO vote on both of them.

By: Ed Ferrusquia

Ed Ferrusquia — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 19:12:49 +0000

I’m glad to finally see people reading the fine print on these things. In the past people could always be counted on to be duped by Orwellian names like “Clean Air Act” and “No Child Left Behind”. I hope the fierce opposition to Prop 16 and 17 has awakened the masses to one simple rule of thumb: Always follow the money – find out who stands to profit. In this case, it’s PG&E.

By: Larry Gilbert

Larry Gilbert — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 15:06:50 +0000

Bill.
I commend you for seeing thru the PG&E spin. Keeping competition out is their sole objective

By: Bill Stanford

Bill Stanford — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 03:22:23 +0000

When I saw the Prop. 16 ads on television, I asked myself “who’s behind this?” Who would stand to profit from imposing a 2/3 majority vote on electric power? A little investigation on the web revealed that it’s Pacific Gas and Electric. I thought so. A cynical attempt to fool voters into hamstringing any local attempts to cut power costs by establishing or expanding a public utility. Well, I live in Riverside, where the public utility is the best thing that ever happened, especially about 10 years ago when Edison began to raise rates in surrounding communities when the power grid was being manipulated by outside forces. Voters, don’t fall for this ruse and get the word out! PG&E, you stink!

By: Marinite

Marinite — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 16:28:59 +0000

I live in Marin, where the first California Community Choice Aggregate (competition to PG&E) is being launched…that is if PG&E doesn’t kill it. In the last four weeks, I have received ten pieces of propoganda from pG&E (cleverly disguised under the name the “Common Sense Coalition), but if you get out your magnifying glass you can find the PG&E name buried in the fine print), received three phone calls, and gotten about ten emails. It is almost harassment at this point. I cna only imagine they are trying to get 100% of the folks to opt-out of Marin Clean Energy, and they are using really misleading fear tactics to do it. The last flier had huge red print on the front titled “WATCH OUT”- they call MCE a government run beauracracy (MCE has only 5 employees- PG&E has more lobbyists in Marin alone) etc. Scary what $35 million will buy. And to actually change the constitution to protect their monopoly? That shouldn’t be legal. Help spread the word, no on prop 16 http://www.powergrab.info

By: Dave Erickson

Dave Erickson — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 22:53:03 +0000

Larry, great article. As a result of the work we did on the we concluded that PG&E wants to kill Community Choice Aggregation because it wants to control the market for renewable electricity. PG&E recognizes that a CCA or a Muni could provide cheaper greener electricity at a lower price than it can. It is simply, as you point out, a move by a monopoly to corner the market on new renewables that will be created by AB 32. Further, they want to make sure that any new renewables developed in CA will be large scale, centralized and far from the load, so that they will also be able to control the new transmission infrastructure required for this type of development. For example, they opposed the 33 percent RPS standard requirement that the new renewables be built in CA. The reason is that they wanted to build new large hydro dams in British Columbia and build the transmission to ship the electrons to CA. In my view, they should be entirely excluded from the development of energy policy in CA!

By: Larry Gilbert

Larry Gilbert — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 19:24:44 +0000

Julie. It is tempting to hit the delete key. What does your comment add to the issue presented?

By: Julie

Julie — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 18:20:44 +0000

I just wanted to let you know that H.L. Richardson is still alive and doing well!