Cal’s No on Prop 23, which would have suspended its Green Power Law, is not what it is cracked up to be. Tom Steyer, who donated $5 million to No On 23, is a hedge fund manager for CalPERS public pension fund. His firm, Farallon Capital Management, invests for CalPERS in stocks with dirty coal, nukes, oil and gas companies in TEXAS!!
Additionally, Farallon invests in Yingli Green Energy Company which scrapped plans to build a solar panel manufacturing plant in TEXAS or ARIZONA and instead will build in China - thus outsourcing potential jobs from California to China.
My guess as to why Steyer does not want Cal’s Green Power Law suspended is that the Law embargoes cheap coal and hydro power thus resulting in eliminating competition for higher priced oil and gas power. So CalPERs and Farallon investments will reap a windfall if Green Power is not suspended.
If I can embargo or blockade Walmart from my community then Macy’s or JC Penney or Safeway Grocery Stores can raise their prices. That is what Green Power is all about - inflating oil and gas prices (along with Green Power) by eliminating competition.
After inflating electricity prices, cash strapped cities in Cal will likely siphon the windfall they realize from Utility User Taxes into their General Funds to meet pension fund deficits. So pension fund deficits will be paid off by inflated electricity rates is my guess.
The last time California tried this was 2001 when it embargoed old polluting oil power plants along the coast and shifted to cleaner natural gas plants to meet Federal EPA air quality mandates. It was called the California Energy Crisis.
This is all documented here: http://www.calwatchdog.com/2010/10/28/prop-23-foe-profits-from-dirty-coal/
Thanks ,....very interesting!
“Cal’s No on Prop 23, which would have suspended its Green Power Law, is not what it is cracked up to be.”
If by that you mean, the No-On-23 supporters are not about “saving mother earth”, well of course! Very little of the econuts activities is about the environment.
I put the econuts in three categories:
1. The narcissists, who regard their sensibilities and wishes to be superior and thus to take precedents over yours and mine. For them a “natural” river is superior to an artificial lake, plowing with a mule superior to a tractor, zero pollution and starving superior to a little pollution and eating, etc. These are the activists in the Sierra Club, earth first, Greenpeace, etc.
2. The useful idiots. These are the masses that are taken in by the fearmongering of the narcissists and do their bidding.
3. The profiteers (the ones that you point out) who are always on the lookout for easy megabucks. I would put Algore in this camp.