Billions of dollars for schools will likely be at stake on the 2016 ballot as well as pivotal campaigns for state Legislature and a question about union pensions. Meanwhile, the Capitol is expecting a robust debate about how schools are evaluated and courts will hear two lawsuits challenging the teachers union.
In coming years, the new legislation means California’s homes and buildings are expected to use dramatically less electricity and the power grid will increase its share of renewable energy. Brown also hopes to achieve much of what the Legislature rejected through executive orders and regulations. That will mean more electric cars on the road and increased use of biofuels, as part of a far-reaching effort to slash greenhouse gas emissions.
In coming years, the new legislation means California’s homes and buildings are expected to use dramatically less electricity and the power grid will increase its share of renewable energy. Brown also hopes to achieve much of what the Legislature rejected through executive orders and regulations. That will mean more electric cars on the road and increased use of biofuels, as part of a far-reaching effort to slash greenhouse gas emissions.
“Not all forms of renewable energy get counted. Large hydropower projects, such as those generated by the dams off Lake Shasta, Lake Oroville or Folsom Lake, are excluded. So are most rooftop solar panel installations, as opposed to the large solar arrays in the desert, which do count. That is a point of contention in the current bill, with utilities and solar installers arguing that rooftop systems also should count. . . . Electricity rates are rising with the policies. According to an estimate from the California Public Utilities Commission, rates have risen three to five percent due to the renewable requirements. In the competition last year to draw the battery factory for the electric carmaker Tesla, Nevada won out over California, the company’s home. Part of the package, according to the New York Times, was discounted electricity rates.”
Change did not come as swiftly as Pavley and Schwarzenegger had hoped. Democrats and some Republicans in Congress tried to pass a bill that would cap greenhouse gas emissions nationally, but it failed. Pavley’s effort to clean up cars’ tailpipes did eventually become the basis of a national policy. But federal rules on climate change still lack the breadth of California’s. Nations like China and Brazil have also moved slowly, at least until recently.