Prop 7: California Air Quality Improvement Act

The are a few Propositions on the California ballot next month that are a bit confusing. They sound good on the surface, but after looking at them, it’s even more unclear as to how to vote on them. Proposition 7 is one of them.

This Proposition is called the California Air Quality Improvement Act. The long and convoluted full text of Proposition 7 can be found here.

Prop 7, if approved, would require California utilities to obtain half of their power from renewable resources by 2025. In order to reach that goal, levels of production of solar, wind and other renewable energy resources will more than quadruple from their current output of 10.9%. It will also require California utilities to increase their purchase of electricity generated from renewable resources by 2% annually to meet Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) requirements of 40% in 2020 and 50% in 2025. Current law AB32 already requires an RPS of 20% by 2010. The Proposition imposes penalties, subject to waiver, for noncompliance and ransfers some jurisdiction of regulatory matters from Public Utilities Commission to Energy Commission.

The arguments for and against Proposition 7 along with their rebuttals can be found here.

Proposition 7 is opposed by many people, newspapers, and groups within the state, including the CA Democratic Party and the Sierra Club. The opposed organizations carefully reviewed Proposition 7 and concluded that it’s fatally flawed, ridden with loopholes, and will slam the brakes on renewable power development. Voting against Proposition 7 won’t say that you are against developing alternative energies, but it will say that you need a better written proposition to vote for.

If you have an opinion about this proposition, I would love to hear about it in the comments area.