California's energy future is up for grabs. Here are the bills that could pass in the next 3 weeks.

Sammy Roth | Palm Springs Desert Sun

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California could dramatically reshape its energy future in the next few weeks. In the halls of the capitol, lawmakers and lobbyists are debating bills that would bolster renewable energy sources like solar and wind, create an interstate electricity market covering much of the western U.S., make it easier for utilities to charge their customers for wildfire damages, and promote the construction of geothermal and hydroelectric power plants.

Lawmakers could pass all those bills. Or they could do nothing.

Three weeks remain until the legislative session ends August 31, and nobody knows what California's energy landscape will look like after that. The outcome could depend on high-stakes negotiations between labor unions, electric utilities, environmentalists, energy companies, local governments and ratepayer advocates — not to mention Gov. Jerry Brown, who has one last chance to advance California's climate change and renewable energy goals in the Legislature before he leaves office early next year.

Two bills are of particular interest to the desert. One of them, from Assemblymember Eduardo Garcia, would require utilities to purchase thousands of megawatts of geothermal power, potentially jump-starting development of geothermal power plants at the southern end of the Salton Sea. The other bill, from Assemblymember Bill Quirk, would require utilities to buy electricity from "pumped storage" hydropower plants. The bill's sponsor is NextEra Energy Resources, which is working with Eagle Crest Energy Company to develop a pumped storage project on land just outside Joshua Tree National Park, in the open desert about an hour east of Palm Springs.

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Making matters more complicated, the energy bills could live or die together. While some of the bills might have the votes to pass on their own merits — particularly Senate Bill 100, which would require California to get 100 percent of its electricity from climate-friendly sources by 2045 — other bills might not. With so many powerful players, including the governor, pushing their priorities, some observers say it's possible a last-minute package deal will combine many of the proposals.

"There's a lot of stuff floating around out there," said Matthew Freedman, an attorney at The Utility Reform Network, an influential ratepayer advocacy group. “Everybody has this fantasy that their bill gets wrapped up in a mega-bill, because it has to go through."

Who should pay for wildfire damages?

The highest-profile legislation being debated involves wildfires.

California has seen the two largest fires in its modern history over the past eight months, part of a trend of western wildfire seasons becoming longer and more intense as global temperatures rise. Destructive fires are sometimes sparked by electricity infrastructure owned by utility companies, which can lead to huge damage payments for the state's three big utilities, Southern California Edison, Pacific Gas & Electric and San Diego Gas & Electric. The companies support making it easier for them to pass on wildfire liability costs to their customers — so long as they've done everything they can, as determined by state regulators, to reduce the risk of their infrastructure sparking fires.

The wildfire question is contentious. The investor-owned utilities say they could face bankruptcy if their shareholders continue to be held liable for the rising costs of destructive wildfires. Gov. Brown has expressed similar concerns, as have renewable energy companies, which rely on utilities to buy the electricity their facilities generate.

In a letter to Brown and lawmakers, representatives of the solar, wind, geothermal and biomass industries wrote that "renewable energy generation and financially healthy (utilities) are wholly interdependent, and your immediate attention is required to ensure the sustainability of both ... Failure to act on either front imperils our markets and progress toward our climate goals."

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Critics see the wildfire liability proposals as an undeserved bailout for monopoly utility companies that could reduce the companies' financial incentive to invest in fire prevention. The Utility Reform Network argues that investor-owned utilities should "pay for their own mistakes, instead of rate hikes and shutoffs for families that can't afford it."

The future of clean energy — in California and across the West

While the wildfire debate is likely to suck up much of the oxygen in Sacramento over the next three weeks, several other bills could have similarly long-term impacts on where Californians get their power, how much they pay, and the environmental consequences.

One of those bills is SB 100, which would require California to get 100 percent of its electricity from climate-friendly sources by 2045, and 60 percent specifically from renewable resources like solar, wind and geothermal by 2030. It was written by state Sen. Kevin de León, a Los Angeles Democrat who is running for U.S. Senate against incumbent Democrat Dianne Feinstein. The bill was approved by the Assembly's energy committee in a party-line vote and could now move to the Assembly floor.

Then there's Assembly Bill 813, which would lay the groundwork for an interstate energy market that could eventually cover much of the western United States. It's a priority for Gov. Brown, who sees a valuable opportunity for California to export its excess solar power to neighboring states, and to import low-cost, climate-friendly energy sources, such as wind power from Wyoming and hydropower from the Pacific Northwest.

The regional market proposal hasn't gotten as much attention as the wildfire liability bills, but in some ways it's just as contentious. There are many arguments for and against the bill. On one side are Brown, energy developers and some environmentalists, who see regional electricity-sharing as one of the best ways for California to fight climate change without driving up utility bills. They point to the fact that California increasingly has more solar power than it can use in the middle of the day, and not enough wind power to keep the lights on and the air-conditioning flowing after the sun goes down. While there are steps California can take on its own to address that problem, supporters of a regional market say tapping solar and wind power from other states, where the sun shines and the wind blows at different times of day, is one of the cheapest solutions.

Stephen Berberich runs the California Independent System Operator, the quasi-governmental nonprofit charged with overseeing most of the state's power grid. Under AB 813, the system operator would be expanded from a state entity governed by California to a regional entity governed by as many as a dozen states — and Berberich thinks that would be good for California. He noted, for instance, that right now California utilities depend on pollution-causing natural gas plants to meet early-morning energy demand before the sun comes up.

"Imagine if you had solar in time zones east of here. We could use that for our morning ramp," Berberich said.

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On the opposing side of the debate is a coalition of labor unions, locally owned utilities and other environmentalists. They worry a regional market would send high-paying construction jobs from California to other states, drive up energy bills and give the Trump administration an opportunity to interfere with the state's climate change and clean energy policies. Many opponents of AB 813 say they see potential benefits in more electricity-sharing in the West. But especially with President Trump's appointees in charge of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, they're convinced this is not the year to pass this bill.

Barry Moline is executive director of the California Municipal Utilities Association, whose members include the cities of Los Angeles, Riverside and San Jose. He pointed to recent actions taken by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC, that he said would benefit coal and nuclear power plants at the expense of renewable energy.

"We shouldn’t ignore what FERC is doing. They will do the exact same thing" in California, Moline said. "It would just seem to be whistling in the dark in a haunted house that this couldn’t possibly happen to us. It's happened to everybody else."

Organized labor a key player on energy issues

The biggest stumbling block to a regional market could be labor unions, which say a regional market would lead to fewer jobs building solar and wind farms in California, because utilities would be able to import more renewable energy from other states. The list of groups opposing AB 813 includes the State Association of Electrical Workers, the State Pipe Trades Council and the State Building and Construction Trades Council.

The bill's author is Chris Holden, a Pasadena Democrat who chairs the Assembly's energy and utilities committee. Holden added a provision to AB 813 earlier this year that was meant to win organized labor's support, by incentivizing in-state renewable energy development. But it isn't clear the amendment would work as intended, and the amendment hasn't moved the needle for labor. And many supporters of the bill oppose the amendment, which they say could eliminate many of the benefits of a regional market. Some advocates have withdrawn their support for the bill unless the amendment is removed.

"If you force all renewable generation in-state, it's horrendous for rates, horrendous for emissions. Gas plants will have to run a lot more, because we'll have everything stacked up in same time zone, same weather patterns," said Don Furman, director of Fix the Grid, an advocacy group backed by environmentalists and energy companies.

How the bill changes in the next three weeks will be determined in part by Kellie Smith, the chief consultant for the Assembly's energy and utilities committee. In an interview Wednesday, Smith said the controversial language on in-state energy development could be changed, although she declined to offer specifics.

"It's another one of those issues that we're open to talking to people in the next 23 days as we get closer to the end of the legislative session," Smith told The Desert Sun.

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Smith said new amendments were added to the bill Tuesday that would add protections for California's ability to set its own energy and climate change policies. Those amendments, which were written by state Sen. Bob Hertzberg, a Los Angeles Democrat, are meant to address concerns that FERC could take advantage of California's decision to join a regional market, by using their federal oversight authority to force the state to buy coal-fired electricity from power plants in Utah and Wyoming.

It's unclear whether those amendments will sway lawmakers who have hesitated to take a firm stance on AB 813, such as Sen. Ben Hueso, a San Diego Democrat who chairs the Senate's energy and utilities committee. Hueso was one of four senators who declined to vote for or against the bill when it went came before his committee in June.

Hueso said he didn't support the bill in committee because it "did not adequately address some of my concerns." But he stopped short of saying the bill can't be fixed.

"Recent actions by the Trump Administration ... are a threat to California’s nation-leading clean and renewable energy goals and policies. Given the current volatility at the federal level, I do not believe this is the appropriate time to risk undermining the energy policies we have fought so hard to advance here," Hueso said in a written statement this week.

The new amendments are unlikely to sway the bill's loudest critics, including the Sierra Club, the country's largest environmental group. While some other major environmental groups, including the Environmental Defense Fund, the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Union of Concerned Scientists, support a regional market, the Sierra Club is opposed. One of the group's main worries is PacifiCorp, a multistate electric utility owned by Warren Buffett that operates six coal-fired plants in Utah and Wyoming.

Travis Ritchie, a staff attorney for the Sierra Club, said PacifiCorp could join a regional market in order to find new customers for its financially struggling coal plants. Californians could end up paying the bill to keep those polluting facilities alive, Ritchie said, especially if the Trump administration interferes with the market to promote coal.

"PacifiCorp for years has been propping up their coal plants and bending over backward to find a way to make coal plants look palatable on their own system. We would fully expect that to continue in a regional market — except in a regional market, it would be California consumers paying to support those coal plants," Ritchie said.

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Supporters of AB 813 expect the bill to have the opposite effect: In a regional market, they say, coal plants will face even more financial pressure from low-cost solar and wind farms, pushing coal closer to extinction. Supporters point out that PacifiCorp's planet-warming emissions have dropped by 14 percent since 2014, when the Buffett-owned utility joined a more limited energy-sharing program, led by the California grid operator.

At the same time, AB 813 supporters don't think PacifiCorp is likely to join a regional market, at least in the first few years. While early studies by the California Independent System Operator focused on the economic and climate benefits that would result from California partnering with PacifiCorp, recent amendments to the bill are designed to attract states with similar political priorities as California, such as Nevada, Oregon and Washington.

"California's major interest is partnering with the states we have the most in common with, and building a very strong foundation. And other states can join from there," said Lauren Navarro, an attorney at the Environmental Defense Fund. "Ideally we'd like to spread clean energy around the West, so California is selling a massive amount of solar generation to other states, and they're able to clean up their (energy) profiles as well."

Bills would support geothermal, hydropower

Meanwhile, several other energy bills are pending in the Legislature.

Assembly Bill 893, which was written by Eduardo Garcia, a Coachella Democrat, would require California utilities to buy 3,000 megawatts of new geothermal power by 2030. The legislation would be a boon for Imperial County, which is home to one of the world's most powerful geothermal reservoirs by the southern shore of the Salton Sea. There are already a dozen geothermal facilities operating in the area, but development has largely stalled over the last 20 years due to the high up-front costs of building a plant.

V. John White, a veteran energy lobbyist who runs the Center for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Technologies, said the 3,000-megawatt figure in the bill may be unrealistic. But White thinks Garcia could get a pared-down version of his proposal passed this year.

"He's been persistent," White said.

Then there's Assembly Bill 2787, which would require utilities to buy energy from "pumped storage" hydropower projects. The bill, which was written by Assemblymember Bill Quirk, a Hayward Democrat, could benefit several projects currently in development.

One of those projects is being developed by Eagle Crest Energy Company and NextEra Energy Resources, in the open desert east of Palm Springs. It would be built on land surrounded on three sides by Joshua Tree National Park, in the Eagle Mountain area just north of Interstate 10. Supporters say the project would allow California to store electricity generated by solar and wind farms, saving that clean energy for times when the sun isn't shining or the wind isn't blowing. Critics say the pumped-storage facility would drain a desert groundwater aquifer and permanently damage ecosystems in and around the national park, harming species like desert tortoises and bighorn sheep.

Quirk's pumped storage bill doesn't mention any specific projects. But the legislation specifies that state officials should focus on "one or more long duration bulk storage projects" with a total capacity between 1,000 and 2,000 megawatts. The Eagle Mountain project would be 1,300 megawatts. According to a fact sheet from Quirk's office, the bill's sponsor is NextEra, one of the companies developing the Eagle Mountain project.

NextEra has given more than $200,000 to California Senate and Assembly candidates this election cycle, state records show, including $3,000 to Quirk. The company's top recipient of campaign funds in the California Legislature this cycle is Garcia, who has gotten $8,200. Garcia has supported the hydropower proposal for several years.

"Renewable energy is the future, and this energy storage project will assist California's electric utilities as they work toward meeting the state's 50 percent renewables goal by 2030," Garcia said in a statement released by Eagle Crest earlier this month.

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In a written statement, Quirk said pumped storage "has the ability to serve as a solution" to help California reduce the greenhouse gas emissions responsible for climate change.

"In order to meet its climate goals, California cannot solely rely on battery storage. It needs the technology pumped storage offers, the ability to capture (and) store large amounts of excess electricity for use during peak demand," Quirk said.

Where does labor unions stand on energy bills?

The State Building and Construction Trades Council supports the pumped storage bill. And the geothermal bill is supported by the Imperial County Building and Construction Trades Council, as well as the San Diego County and Imperial County chapter of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. Supporters of a regional energy market have speculated that those bills could be used to build labor support for AB 813.

Marc Joseph, an attorney who represents the State Building and Construction Trades Council, said the union's position is "still a firm oppose" on AB 813.

"We're not interested in bundling regionalization with anything else," he said.

Energy lobbyists have speculated about other potential deals. The three big utilities, for instance, may be willing to cut a deal to get wildfire relief. The utilities haven't taken public positions on the regional market bill yet, but they all oppose the 100 percent climate-friendly energy bill, SB 100, arguing it could lead to higher costs for their customers.

Southern California Edison has suggested it could support SB 100 if its other priorities are addressed. In a letter to Assembly leader Anthony Rendon, Edison official Darren Bouton complained that SB 100 "does not consider the current regulatory and legal uncertainty faced by electric utilities," namely "the financial burden of wildfire damages."

One other factor could contribute to last-minute dealmaking: Gov. Brown will co-chair an international climate action summit in San Francisco starting September 12, less than two weeks after the legislative session ends. Some lobbyists say they expect the governor will want to bring fresh victories on climate and clean energy to the summit.

Sammy Roth writes about energy and the environment for The Desert Sun. He can be reached at sammy.roth@desertsun.com, (760) 778-4622 and @Sammy_Roth.