Some victories in the final days of the legislative session need momentum. Others need muscle. Bloom Energy had both.
Lawmakers agreed last month to extend a vital subsidy for the Silicon Valley company, one that makes its pricey power generators more attractive to buyers such as hospitals, data centers and mega-retailers. For Bloom and its industry cohorts, the win marked the end of a hard-fought slog against powerful adversaries including utilities and labor groups.
But rival companies and some lawmakers had a different perspective: Bloom — which has on its board of directors John Doerr, a prominent venture capitalist and Democratic Party mega-donor — owes its success to the eager backing of California’s top politicians and upending the public legislative process, affording it chances most other groups don’t get.
Capitol sausage-making is rarely tidy. But the zig-zagging journey of the policy backed by Bloom marks one of the most convoluted legislative sagas of the year, prompting pointed commentary from veteran legislators.
“This bill has had a tortuous and sordid history,” Assemblyman Das Williams (D-Santa Barbara) said at an 11th-hour committee hearing on the issue on the penultimate day of the legislative session. The observation prompted knowing titters from his audience of lobbyists and lawmakers.
Bloom is no stranger to California’s political process. It reaped hundreds of millions from a state incentive created to boost technologies that let consumers generate their own electricity. After scrutiny over how those funds were handed out, it was recently overhauled to focus more on energy storage.
The company has savvy power players at the helm, including former Secretary of State Colin Powell on its board. Its most prominent financial backer, Doerr, was an economic adviser to President Obama and appeared on a 2010 episode of “60 Minutes” touting Bloom’s fuel cell technology, which produces electricity through a chemical reaction.
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