California Voters Reject Well Meaning But Poorly Drafted Renewable Energy Ballot Initiatives
by Matthew McDermott, New York, NY 
on 11. 5.08
photo: Katie Claypool
A quick post-vote update to some of the renewable energy ballot initiatives in California: With over over a third of votes counted, approximately 60% of voters have rejected both Proposition 7 and Proposition 10. Prop 7 would have raised California’s renewable portfolio standard for utilities to 50% by 2025; while Prop 10 would have have provided funding to help offset the costs individuals would pay in purchasing alternative fuel vehicles.
While both sound like laudable goals, opposition to Prop 7 spanned a spectrum ranging from utility companies themselves to environmental groups who argued that had it passed the measure—often described as well meaning (no one is arguing that more renewable energy is a bad thing) but poorly drafted—would have both raised the rates customers paid for electricity, but at the same time put small renewable energy companies out of business.
Opponents of Prop 10 said that the $5 billion in bonds that a yes vote would have authorized would simply move more money into the coffers of T. Boone Pickens' Clean Fuel Energy Corp, a natural gas fueling company that would no doubt benefit from more natural gas vehicles driving on California’s roads.
California’s current renewable portfolio standard for utilities is 20% by 2010. Utilities are expected to fall short of this goal.
via: CBS2.com
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With the dramatic need for renewable energy and alternative fuels in California and across the U.S., you would think a truly viable proposition would have been on the ballot rather than what was presented to voters in Prop 7 and Prop 10.
I'm all for these causes, just don't want to see them being done the wrong way. The voters obviously didn't want to pay higher electric rates (which from what I understand are already scheduled to go up) and didn't want the smaller companies who have workable renewable energy businesses to be put out of business.
As for Prop 10, like you said, it appears voters felt one company shouldn't be reaping in all the funds from one proposition.
I would love for someone to explain how Sierra Club, NRDC and Environmental Defense got snowed into opposing Prop 7. I believe there was some serious co-opting going on.
Look, the Bill of Rights is not perfect. If I were going to make an ad campaign around it, I could've convinced people that we shouldn't have it as part of the constitution. But that's letting the perfect be the enemy of the good.
I think a flawed Prop 7 in place would've been far superior to where we're at without it. But it's a little to late to have this discussion.
There's a way to find and fix problems with initiatives before they're on the ballot:
Voters on initiatives need what legislators get: public hearings, expert testimony, amendments, reports, etc., but independent of the legislature, as all branches of government work independently. The best project for such deliberative process is the National Initiative for Democracy, led by former Sen. Mike Gravel: http://Vote.org. Also http://healthydemocracyoregon.org/ and http://cirwa.org
Steve,
Also the California Green party was against both propositions. While I would not put it past some envirnmental organizations to be co-opted, I would say it is unlikely that so many of them and the Greens (who did not even support Obama as they though he was to far right) were all co-opted.