by Amanda Witherell
Clean Energy Act supporters gathered in front of Pacific Gas & Electric corporate headquarters on Wed., Aug. 29, to mock the $10 million the utility company has spent opposing the legislation.
Dressed as construction workers, activists from the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, Green4All, and Green Guerrillas against Greenwashing, successfully erected three wind turbines in front of the PG&E building.
PG&E employees, penned behind a barricade and standing underneath a “Stop the Blank Check” banner watched the activists wrestle with enormous burlap bags of money, signifying the millions PG&E has dumped into the campaign opposing the measure that would move San Francisco more rapidly toward 100 percent renewable energy. PG&E alleges the measure is a blank check for supervisors because it allows them to issue revenue bonds to finance renewable power infrastructure. In fact, PG&E has written the entire check for the No on H campaign. As we pointed out in this week’s issue, it’s also shunting some of that money into supervisors’ races to support Mayor Gavin Newsom’s picks for the Board in districts 1, 3, and 11. Besides the fact that Newsom’s campaign director, Eric Jaye, also runs PG&E’s No on H committee, why might it be important for PG&E to have friends on the Board of Supervisors?
Well, if Prop H does pass, unlike the “blank check” lies PG&E is telling you about it, the SFPUC will conduct a study to explore the best way toward 100 percent renewables. If that includes a publicly-owned utility system (that would, by default, put PG&E out of business in San Francisco) the supervisors will still have to vote for it and vote for the bonds to do it. So, PG&E needs a board that’s friendly.