Leading clean energy and environmental justice advocates and utility industry experts held an online briefing to discuss a PG&E-backed plan, which regulators could soon approve, to quash California’s popular rooftop solar program. If enacted, the proposal would exact a heavy financial toll on captive ratepayers, just as electric bills for millions of working-class Californians are skyrocketing.
One of the participants, EQ Research Principal Ben Inskeep, is a prominent utility industry analyst who recently conducted a nationwide analysis showing how California, the leading state for advancing rooftop solar, would have the most regressive policy in the country if the utilities get their way with the proposal currently before the California Public Utilities Commission, or CPUC.
Joining Inskeep were Stanford University professor Mark Jacobson, Laura Deehan, state director for Environment California, and Esperanza Vielma, executive director of the Environmental Justice Coalition for Water, two of the leading voices among the environmental and equity communities working to turn back the utility-supported proposal. EWG President Ken Cook, who has officially intervened before the CPUC, urging regulators to reject the scheme, also participated.
Those who participated in the briefing called for Gov. Gavin Newsom to use his influence and bully pulpit to stop the CPUC from adopting the plot by PG&E and the other big investor-owned electric utilities in California.
The briefing occurred just days after Newsom expressed concerns about the proposal as it’s currently written, telling reporters at a recent press conference, “I’ll say this about the plan: We still have some work to do.”
Those who participated in the event included:
