Testimony: Clean Energy in California, SB 423

Dan Jacobson, senior advisor to Environment California testified in the Senate Environmental Quality committee about a bill to expand renewal energy resources, SB 423 by Sen. Stern. Here is his testimony

Environment California played a leading advocacy role in the development and passage of California’s first renewable portfolio standard (RPS) in 2001 and the subsequent bills that passed increasing the RPS including SB 100 (deLeon) a bill to generate 100% clean energy. We believe SB 423 authored by Sen. Stern is an important step in helping the state reach this goal.

Our 100% clean energy goal is designed to facilitate the adoption of a diverse set of clean energy technologies, yet the current modeling at the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) has been constrained and has limited the evaluation of key technologies such as offshore wind, geothermal, and multi-day storage.

SB 423 responds to this challenge by ensuring that such technologies are appropriately evaluated, modeled, and that the value of these technologies to our electricity system are appropriately considered. 

The recent California Energy Commission’s SB 100 report noted that additional analysis is needed to evaluate whether projected portfolios will meet system reliability requirements, while continuing to assess resource and technology availability. 

It is important that future analyses should be updated to reflect market trends, including changes in price, the commercialization of new technologies, and updates to total resource potential. 

Environment California believes that SB 423 fulfills these recommendations and seeks to ensure that 100% clean energy implementation pathways continue to evaluate and consider ways to better assess emerging technologies that could significantly contribute to a 2045 clean energy resource mix.

In 2020, Californians witnessed the impacts of climate change as never before. The state experienced its hottest August on record — the month ranked third hottest across the United States.

Along with record-breaking heat came a record-breaking fire season. The 2020 wildfire season was the largest in history, burning more than 4 million acres and shattering the previous record set in 2018.

Climate change-related events will continue to become more frequent, catastrophic, and costly. And the impacts are often disproportionately borne by the state’s most vulnerable and disadvantaged populations.

For these reasons, Environment California supports SB 423 and urge the legislature to support it. 

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Authors

Dan Jacobson

Senior Advisor, Environment California

Dan provides campaign strategy and policy guidance for Environment California's program and organizational plans. Prior to his current role, he worked as the state director of Environment California and the organizing director of Florida PIRG, among other roles. The Center for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Technologies (CEERT) named Dan a Clean Power Champion in 2019, and Capitol Weekly named him one of the “Top 100 Lobbyists” in California in 2008. Dan's areas of expertise include renewable energy, electric vehicles and ocean pollution, and he has successfully advocated for the passage of dozens of bills into law, including measures to ban toxic chemicals, bring 1 million solar roofs to California, and ban single-use plastic grocery bags. He ran the campaign for SB 100, California’s law setting a goal of 100 percent clean energy by 2045.

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