California legislators at the end of August killed a bill to establish a multi-state wholesale electric market in the West, as it neared passage. California’s Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown had been the key advocate of transforming the California Independent System Operator and its region-wide imbalance market into a true regional transmission organization similar to those in the eastern U.S., such as the PJM Interconnection.
The defeat, as the legislature adjourned for the year, marked the third time in three years that California lawmakers rejected Brown’s plan to integrate 14 western states into a regional transmission organization. The legislation, AB 813, won bipartisan support until it came to the Senaate’s rules committee, which denied it a floor vote.
“AB 813 will not be moved to the Senate Floor for a vote this year,” said Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins, D-San Diego. “We will continue this important discussion next year.
The legislation had the support of some important environmental groups and the CAISO. Ralph Cavanagh of the Natural Resources Defense Council, which has been pushing the legislation for several years, commented that “the need for fully integrating the western grid grows more obvious every day. If California doesn’t lead the inevitable transition, others will. California’s wind and solar generation are growing faster than our inefficiently managed electric grid can put them to use. We’re literally throwing away pollution-free electricity during certain periods, and the problem will only get worse.”
But the plan’s opponents won the day, as they have consistently. They include some consumer groups, unions, and utilities. The San Diego Union Tribune commented, “The death of the legislation signaled that legislative leadership was unwilling to cross potent political forces that opposed the bill, like organized labor and public utilities, or do bidding for a governor not long for office.”
Leading the opposition against AB 813 was Loretta Lynch, a member and former president of the California Public Utilities Commission (2000-2005), an appointee of Gov. Gray Davis, and a long-time opponent of electricity “deregulation,” whatever that term might mean. After the latest defeat of Brown’s grid plan, she said, “California dodged a dangerous bullet that would have subjected our electricity market and grid to big-money, fossil-fuel interests who wanted to break down the clean energy protections California has enacted over the past decade.”
Michael Aguirre, an attorney for the large public power system Imperial Irrigation District, said, “California has made a historic commitment to be 100 percent renewable while avoiding the mistake of AB 813, which would have transferred renewable jobs to other states.”
NRDC’s Cavanagh tried to put a positive spin on the defeat. He said the issue will arise again next year, “January 2019 marks the next opportunity for the California legislature to open the door for the critical transition to a fully integrated western grid.”
But California will have a new governor then. Brown, who served as California attorney general from 2007 to 2001 and governor from 1975-1983 and 2011-2018, is stepping down. Given the internecine strife in California’s Democratic Party, it’s difficult to predict what the legislative agenda will look like in 2019.
— Kennedy Maize