STATEMENT BY LOS ANGELES DEPARTMENT OF WATER & POWER
CEO AND GENERAL MANAGER DAVID NAHAI IN RESPONSE TO CALIFORNIA PUBLIC UTILITIES COMMISSION PRESIDENT PEEVEY’S PROPOSED DECISION PERTAINING TO GREENHOUSE GAS REGULATORY STRATEGIES
LADWP CEO & General Manager David Nahai released the following statement today in response to the proposed decision by CPUC President Michael Peevey regarding Greenhouse Gas Regulatory Strategies:
“I am extremely disappointed by the state’s tentative ruling on climate change released late last Friday. The proposed regulatory scheme announced by CPUC President Peevey guts the groundbreaking environmental goals envisioned by AB 32 and sets California on a path to choose profits over the environment.
This decision by the State’s chief utility regulator brings back memories of California’s failed deregulation experiment – contrived by profit-driven special interests and thrust upon California’s consumers, only this time; the State wants to drag municipal utilities into their ill-advised scheme. The health and well-being of our customers, our environment and avoiding another energy crisis should be State regulators’ top priority, not lining the pockets of large corporations, as this ruling would do if enacted.
The proposed decision does nothing to improve California’s environment and specifically targets Los Angeles and Southern California public power customers for unfair treatment. The proposed financial scheme substitutes monetary payments for real action to improve our environment and shifts billions of dollars away from our communities and our customers and into the pockets of for-profit utilities.
AB 32 was supposed to be about protecting our environment and reducing the impacts of climate change for our children and grandchildren. When LADWP supported AB 32 in 2006, we never envisioned that state regulators would support the financial scheme that was proposed last Friday. As drafted, it is a betrayal of the spirit and intent of AB 32.
The LADWP recognizes and embraces our responsibility to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. We are on track to meet our commitment to provide 20% renewable power to our customers by 2010, we have committed to reach 35% renewables by 2020 and to reduce our own carbon emissions as part of the State’s goal. This decision thwarts those efforts.
Rather than reward investment in renewable energy and the advancement of progressive environmentally responsible policies to diversify Los Angeles’ energy supply, this decision does little more than create financial winners and losers, a strategy that will never get us to our collective goals to make California the leader in climate change action.”
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