(Source: Ventura County Star)
By Timm Herdt, Ventura County Star, Calif.
Sept. 01--SACRAMENTO -- That dollar or so surcharge you pay each month on your electricity bill is the subject of intense jockeying in the state Capitol this week, because unless action to extend it is approved by next Friday it will go away at the end of the year.
Supporters, led by Gov. Jerry Brown, argue it must be renewed in order to provide low-cost financing for energy efficiency projects, to fund research that will spur job-creating investment in new energy technologies and to maintain California's standing as a national leader in the green-tech industry.
Opponents, led by Southern California Edison, assert its extension will add more upward pressure on electricity rates that are headed higher as utilities strive to comply with a new state mandate that a third of the power they supply be generated by renewable sources by 2020.
The surcharge was implemented in the mid-1990s, when policymakers feared deregulation of the electricity industry would result in utility companies abandoning energy research and other programs that yield broad public benefits. Known as the "public goods charge," it amounts to $1.50 on every $100 in electricity use, and is included as a line item on monthly utility bills.
All those dollars add up. Last year, the public goods charge generated a little more than $400 million.
Brown has embraced its reauthorization as a key component of his program to spur job growth in California. Lawmakers, including Assemblyman Das Williams, D-Santa Barbara, have been fashioning bills to extend and improve the programs it funds for much of the year, and the Brown administration two weeks ago submitted its own detailed proposal.
In an Aug. 19 letter to interested parties, Nancy McFadden, a top aide to the governor, called the reauthorization "a top priority" of the administration.
"Reauthorization of the program will lead to thousands of new jobs making homes more efficient and building renewable energy and energy storage projects," she wrote. "And it will allow California to maintain its lead as the incubator of creative new clean-energy technologies and industries."
At a special joint legislative hearing on the issue Wednesday, dozens of lobbyists lined up to urge its extension, including representatives of venture capitalists who said the seed money the state program provides helps develop new technologies that spur private investment.