Over the past few years, a rising tide of legislation has sought to repeal or weaken renewable portfolio standards RPS, which require a certain share of a state’s electricity supply to come from sources like solar and wind. Lesser known are the few lawsuits filed to challenge the constitutionality of these laws.
Many of these attempts have fizzled, but some are being revived this year. In total, 42 efforts are wending their way through legislatures and courts in more than two dozen states, according to the North Carolina Solar Center, a clearinghouse for state renewable energy policies.
“The danger of some of these [RPS laws] being repealed is a little bit greater this year than it was last year,” said Justin Barnes, a senior policy analyst at the center.”
While Republicans are behind most of these anti-renewable attacks (unsurprisingly), Gallucci points to a more specific source.
The biggest push is coming from the American Legislative Exchange Council ALEC, a 40-year-old industry group with free-market views that drafts and pushes legislation and that sees renewable energy mandates as an overreach of government authority.
Tomorrow at 2:30 PM EDT, a federal Renewable Energy Standard (RES) — which has been pronounced dead and then revived many times in the past year — will get another jolt of Senate CPR, when a bipartisan group of Senators unveils a new attempt at establishing a minimum amount of electricity that utilities must produce from renewable sources such as wind and solar power.
The big difference this time is that the RES will stand alone — not as part of a comprehensive (and controversial) climate bill. Whether that helps the bill or hurts its chances for passage is anyone’s guess. Uncertainty about the bill’s fate is further compounded by election season politics.
Senators Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) and Sam Brownback (R-KS) will introduce the new RES, with the support of colleagues Byron Dorgan (D-ND), Susan Collins (R-ME) and Tom Udall (D-NM).
In a statement released today by the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, which Bingaman chairs, the senior senator from New Mexico declared that the Senate “need[s] to get on with figuring out what we can pass and move forward.” (Bingaman’s earlier attempt at crafting a RES was criticized for being too weak.)
In the same statement, Bingaman’s GOP counterpart on the committee, Sam Brownback, argued that a RES “will encourage home-grown supplies like wind in Kansas and help diversify our nation’s energy sources.”
Perhaps they can actually make it happen this time. Then again, we’re talking about the United States Senate, which, if it were a country, would be declared a failed state. And the emailed press release doesn’t exactly instill confidence in the cooperative process. Democrat Binagman apparently believes RES is an acronym for “Renewable Electricity Standard,” whereas for Republican Brownback, it stands for “Renewable Energy Standard.”
It’s a small matter, no doubt. But the group needs to be on the same page — and using the same terminology — if the RES is to become more than a political CPR practice dummy.
Steve May, the GOP candidate whose involvement in recruiting “sham” candidates to run on the Green Party ticket is described below, today withdrew from a race for state office after reports surfaced that he pleaded guilty last year to a “super extreme DUI” charge. That DUI designation means May’s blood alcohol level was at least two-and-a-half times the legal limit.
Meanwhile, a judge ruled last week that the names of the candidates recruited by May could appear on ballots, despite the objections of the Green Party, which argued that the candidates do not represent Green Party values. As part of their evidence, the Green Party released records showing that Ben Pearcy, who is running for a seat on the Arizona Corporation Commission, switched his party affiliation from Republican to the Green Party the day before he filed to run for the ACC seat.
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Regular readers of The Phoenix Sun know how important the Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC) has been to the growth of clean and renewable energy in this sun-drenched state. For example, under the leadership of outgoing chairwoman Kris Mayes (who is term-limited out this year), the ACC created one of the toughest Renewable Energy Standards (RES) in the country, calling on utilities to generate 15% of electricity from renewable sources by 2025.
Despite negative stories about Arizona in the national news lately, the one area in which we continue to shine (pun intended) is in solar power. The nation looks to Arizona to see where the solar energy industry is heading and so far what these see is good — in large part thanks to the ACC.
“Republican Runs Street People on Green Ticket” reads the headline. And the first of the alleged ringer-candidates is running for the ACC. His name is Ben Pearcy, a 20-year-old street musician who, according to the Times, described himself as the illegitimate son of a stripper and who has been homeless and had run-ins with the law on occasion.
My own view is that using the word “illegitimate” to describe someone whose parents weren’t married is itself illegitimate. Same goes for the low blow about his mother’s occupation. And having been homeless. In fact, most of what’s highlighted in Pearcy’s short bio plays into cruel and baseless stereotypes.
Which is exactly why some Democrats are crying foul.
“It’s unbelievable,” former Arizona Democratic state legislator Jackie Thrasher, says in the Times piece. “It’s not right. It’s deceitful.”
The idea is that by getting people who are, for whatever reason, unelectable, to run for office on the Green party ticket, environmentalists will split the Democratic vote — giving Republicans a better chance of winning the position for themselves.
The Republican “recruiter” is former state legislator Steve May. (May didn’t respond to an interview request left on his voicemail.)
Matt Roberts, communications director for the Arizona Republican Party, told the Sun that he hadn’t discussed the issue with May, but that there isn’t anything wrong with what May is doing.
“Who’s to say whether or not a person is qualified to run?” asked Roberts. “We encourage everybody to get involved in the political process.”
The likelihood of peeling off enough votes to throw an election one way or the other is much greater in low-profile races where voters generally don’t know the office people are seeking, let alone the candidates themselves.
Races, that is, like the one for the Arizona Corporation Commission.
Outgoing ACC chairwoman Mayes, a moderate Republican, had wanted to increase the state’s RES before leaving office. But time for such an effort appears to have run out. The new board may have trouble accomplishing that objective, especially if Republican candidate Brenda Burns is elected.
“There are people who want to increase (the RES),” Burns told the Sun in August. “I’m not one of them.”
