Edison bailout falters, utilities amp up anti-MUD campaign despite
growing public power support                                            
 	 		 		
Power on | September 19, 2001 | SFBG News
 		 		 		 		
By Rachel Brahinsky
 						
Bowing to pressure from Pacific Gas and Electric and other 
utilities' lobbyists, a state assembly committee killed a public 
power bill by Sen. Nell Soto (D-Ontario) last week by a 
razor-thin margin of 8-6. The bill would have made it easier for 
communities to form public power agencies like the municipal 
utility district (Proposition I) and the municipal water and 
power agency (Proposition F) that are on the fall ballot.
 						
Current law, known as the "rebuttable presumption," assumes that 
a public takeover of a utility is not in the public interest, 
until proved otherwise. The bill would have removed that 
obstacle.
 						
The bill, S.B. X2 23, passed by the state senate July 19, was 
bottled up in the assembly's Energy Cost and Availability 
Committee. The committee is headed up by Roderick Wright, a Los 
Angeles Democrat who opposed the bill and who took in more than 
$85,000 in contributions from the utilities in the last election 
cycle.
 						
Opposition to the bill represents a new alliance against public 
power. Along with the state's largest private utilities, 
lobbyists representing groups such as the California Cable 
Television Association actively fought the bill. Some 40 
lobbyists reportedly attended a late-night session of the 
committee Sept. 10.
 						
"We had a problem all year with the cable and telecom companies," 
Barbara George, director of Women's Energy Matters, told the Bay 
Guardian. "They held the bill up for months."
 						
In a last-ditch attempt to salvage part of Soto's bill, Ed 
Smeloff, assistant general manager for power policy at the San 
Francisco Public Utilities Commission, lobbied state senator John 
Burton this week to tuck key provisions into the state's bailout 
plan for Southern California Edison. The state has been working 
feverishly to prevent the utility from following PG into 
bankruptcy. Gov. Gray Davis has said that he will call for a 
special legislative session to finalize the bailout plan. 
Consumer and public power advocates have bitterly fought the deal 
for months, and some are concerned that making any pact to add 
pro-public power provisions will force them to lend their support 
to an anticonsumer bill.
 						
But on Monday, Burton predicted the Edison's plan's death. 
"Anything that's not a total giveaway to Edison, they aren't 
going to want," he told us. "And if they don't want it, nobody's 
going to vote for it, so we aren't going to be able to put Soto's 
bill into something that won't pass. We're going to work next 
year to try to figure out how to get it through." The next 
legislative session begins in January. Soto has not yet announced 
whether she will reintroduce the bill, but her office has pledged 
to continue to press for public power.
 						
In San Francisco a similar alliance is emerging to block public 
power. Already a committee managed by representatives of the 
Committee on Jobs, a business lobbying group, has been organized, 
and sources say it represents the garbage and telecommunications 
industries. That group joins the Coalition for Affordable Public 
Services, a group funded completely by PG, in fighting public 
power.
 						
But public power advocates say the only utility that should fear 
their efforts is PG. "All the focus is on electricity and gas," 
Ross Mirkarimi told the Bay Guardian. "That's it." Mirkarimi is 
the campaign director for the consolidated public and solar power 
campaigns in San Francisco.
 						
Meanwhile, support for public power among community groups is 
growing. The Alliance for a Better District 6, the Senior Action 
Network, the San Francisco Bay Chapter of the Sierra Club, and 
the Raoul Wallenberg Jewish Democratic Club have each endorsed 
Props. I and F. Some groups have endorsed one measure and not the 
other. The League of Conservation Voters, for example, is 
endorsing Prop. F but is neutral on Prop. I.
 						
Read Sacramento Bee editorial " 
[http://www.sacbee.com/voices/news/voices01_20010917.html] ."
 						
P.S. The media blackout continues. The November election is six 
weeks away, and still the city's daily papers have barely covered 
the two public power initiatives. The last time the San Francisco 
Chronicle committed a story to the local effort was at the end of 
July, almost two months ago. Soto's bill was never mentioned. 
						
E-mail Rachel Brahinsky at  [] .
 						
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