Senate President pro tem Mike McGuire is trying to push through a permitting package while a larger fight over cutting programs to reduce electric bills looms. | Rich Pedroncelli/AP
CHESS OR DODGEBALL: It’s not just you. A week out from the drop-dead deadline to submit bills this legislative session, almost nobody outside a small group of negotiators knows what’s going on with two proposals that could take big swings at electricity affordability and clean energy development.
Sources close to the discussions expect that if anything makes it into writing, it’ll be by Sunday, but the few in the know aren’t saying much.
“Collaborative conversations,” a harried Senate President pro tem Mike McGuire repeated in response to questions as he darted from a side room of the Senate chamber to members’ desks to his office yesterday.
“Still in discussions,” Sen. Josh Becker said as he vacated the Capitol for a couple days to attend the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
“Chaos,” said another source familiar with the talks.
We also collected no-comments from Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas’ office and the governor’s office.
What’s clear is the two packages — one aimed at making it easier to permit and pay for California manufacturing and clean energy projects and one aimed at reducing electricity bills — are key pieces in the end-of-session gaming happening among legislative leaders and the governor’s office.
What we know: The Senate has floated draft proposals for a McGuire-backed package called “California Made.”
The package would create a “one-stop-shop” to permit a limited number of renewable energy projects and would provide more state-level authority over portions of the environmental review process. It would also provide tax credits to support manufacturing of electric vehicle equipment, battery storage and renewable energy components that would be based on the wages manufacturers pay to employees.
That’s helped the package get support from organized labor.
“We’re completely supportive of the California Made package,” said International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers lobbyist Scott Wetch. “We think it’s really important.”
Wetch pointed to the role that global supply chain shortages have played in some of California’s most-loathed energy transition delays, including long waits to connect new EV chargers, buildings and anything else to the electric grid. Building the parts at home could help, he said.
The electric bill package, a priority for both the governor’s office and the Assembly, could be a bigger fight. Assembly Utilities and Energy Committee Chair Cottie Petrie-Norris has said she’s trying to reduce monthly electric bills — which have risen as much as 110 percent in the last decade — by $10. That means cutting costs, which is making clean energy advocates nervous.
A group of about 30 environmental, solar and clean energy advocacy organizations said in a letter yesterday to Gov. Gavin Newsom, McGuire and Rivas that they expect the package to cut programs paid for in electric bills that fund HVAC improvements in schools, battery storage systems for low-income customers and solar for renters.
The programs’ defenders say their benefits are worth the cost. But ratepayer advocates have long held that the school HVAC program and the battery storage program aren’t appropriate for electric bills.
“To us it doesn’t benefit us to have a program that benefits an extremely small percent of low-income customers by increasing bills for everyone else,” said Mark Toney, executive director of ratepayer advocacy group The Utility Reform Network.
Meanwhile, Wetch said the union is “very supportive” of efforts to improve affordability.
He said the union supports the school HVAC program, which was a pandemic priority, but said the other two could go.
And he nodded to compromise.
“Everybody’s going to have to sacrifice if we’re going to do anything meaningful on rates, so we’re going to wait and see what it looks like,” he said. — WV