Dear Environmental Caucus members,
I. Congratulations!
I would like to extend a hearty congratulations to all of our members who were appointed to a CDP committee. There was a lot of churn this year. We’ll be looking to you to ensure that our shared concerns on staving off a climate catastrophe are uplifted and taken seriously by the Party. If we can be of any support to you, please let us know.
II. Save Rooftop Solar Resolution
The fight to save rooftop solar continues. Below is a resolution template you can take to your DCC, club, and/or region. Please keep us posted. We will be submitting this for consideration at the August EBoard meeting.
Resolution in Support of Enhanced Access to Rooftop Solar and Net Metering
WHEREAS, Over the past two decades, hundreds of thousands of Californians have invested in rooftop solar to combat climate change, lower energy bills, and invest in local communities; and
WHEREAS, The State of California encouraged these investments via policies like net metering, which lets solar users share their extra energy with their neighbors for a bill credit and today rooftop solar, often paired with battery storage, is an increasingly affordable investment embraced by working class communities as a common and increasingly affordable solution to wildfires, blackouts, and rate increases; and
WHEREAS, net metering and, therefore, rooftop solar is at risk of being jeopardized by California’s investor-owned utilities, who are opposed to the growth of rooftop solar and storage because it threatens their business model, which depends on building an ever bigger and more expensive grid at the expense of ratepayers;
BE IT RESOLVED, that the [NAME OF ORGANIZATION] calls on Governor Newsom and the California Public Utilities Commission to:
- Keep rooftop solar growing to fight climate change and build a safer, more resilient grid;
- Prioritize equity by bringing rooftop solar and storage to more lower-income families and disadvantaged communities; and
- Make solar-charged batteries standard with rooftop solar by 2030; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the [NAME OF ORGANIZATION] calls on Governor Newsom and the California Public Utilities Commission to reject any proposals by investor-owned utilities or organizations that side with them to slash solar bill savings or impose new fees on solar users that collectively would set back California’s climate change and environmental justice goals, consign the public to annual power outages, reduce customer bill savings, and harm access to solar energy by lower-income ratepayers.
III. Stand with Sunrise on July 15!
The White House is on defense, Igor. They want us to believe that Biden is doing enough to address the greatest threat to our generation. But the climate provisions in his bipartisan infrastructure deal are nowhere close to what he ran on, let alone what’s scientifically necessary.
