{"id":11051,"date":"2019-02-09T11:40:21","date_gmt":"2019-02-09T19:40:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=11051"},"modified":"2019-02-09T11:40:58","modified_gmt":"2019-02-09T19:40:58","slug":"alexandria-ocasio-cortezs-green-new-deal-should-nationalize-utilities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2019\/02\/09\/alexandria-ocasio-cortezs-green-new-deal-should-nationalize-utilities\/","title":{"rendered":"ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ\u2019S GREEN NEW DEAL SHOULD NATIONALIZE UTILITIES"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

FRI, 2\/8\/2019 – BY\u00a0CAROLINE HASKINS<\/a> (Occupy.com)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

THIS ARTICLE ORIGINALLY APPEARED ON MOTHERBOARD<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Al Drago\/Bloomberg<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Thursday, a resolution<\/a> for the Green New Deal\u2014a climate change-focused public infrastructure bill spearheaded by Congressperson Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez\u2014was released to the public.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The resolution is just that\u2014a resolution, and not an actual bill. So it doesn\u2019t get into nitty-gritty details as to exactly how it will achieve net zero emissions by 2050, a goal recently stated<\/a> by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to be the only way to keep warming to below 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial, late-nineteenth century levels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the resolution does establish a set of values, and names stakeholders that should be included in an eventual Green New Deal bill. The resolution specifically states that the Green New Deal bill will create \u201cappropriate ownership stakes\u201d for the public, support \u2018community grants, public banks, and other public financing.\u201d In short, the resolution places public ownership front and center.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This may sound abstract. However, there\u2019s an excellent way to ensure that the public has ownership in Green New Deal assets, and has agency in a world with the Green New Deal: Nationalize public utilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The urgency for nationalizing public utilities could not be more poignant. Last week, private natural gas and electricity utility Pacific Gas and Electric Company, better known as PG&E, filed for<\/a> chapter 11 bankruptcy. It is currently facing $30 billion in liability fees after a state investigation found<\/a> that it caused at least a dozen wildfires back in October 2017. The wildfires, sparked by downed power lines<\/a>, killed at least 46 people<\/a> and burned more than 200,000 acres<\/a> of land.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because PG&E is a private utility company that\u2019s filing for bankruptcy, the company\u2019s tragic mistake is going to cost state residents for years. Per legislation passed<\/a> at the state level this past September, ratepayers legally have to bear financial responsibility for damage caused by PG&E by paying higher rates for PG&E services. This explains why the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), which is in charge of regulating private and public utilities in the state, approved a plan<\/a> to let PG&E take out $6 billion in loans that will also be funded by ratepayers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it doesn\u2019t have to be this way. Right now, PG&E is an investor-owned utility, meaning that the company’s express purpose is to maximize the return on investment for stockholders. This affects everything from its management structure to the rates people have to pay for gas and power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Johanna Bozuwa, a research associate at the Democracy Collaborative focused on the fossil fuel economy, told Motherboard in a phone call that investor-owned utilities also operate with disproportionate power in de facto regional monopolies. \u201cThe reality is that these monopolies have a lot of power and often will regulate their own regulators,\u201d Bozuwa said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bozuwa explained that investor-owned utilities will often spend their money on lobbying and campaign contributions. In 2018, PG&E spent<\/a>$8.89 million on lobbying, and $1.29 million on campaign contributions (including $52,010 for Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Investor-owned utilities are set up to prioritize short-term investor profits and not represent the long-term interests and well-being of the people who pay for those utilities. Bozuwa told Motherboard that since companies like PG&E have standard, dirty energy assets, they\u2019re not incentivized to invest in clean energy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not only that they have a lot of fossil fuels, it\u2019s that their entire system has operated off of fossil fuels, and they\u2019ve figured out how to make money off of that process,\u201d Bozuwa said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo being pushed towards taking climate change seriously and shifting towards renewables\u2026 those are all things that are contrary to the investor-owned utility model that makes money specifically off of what they call capital infrastructure and guaranteed rate of return.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The alternative is a publicly owned utility. According to the CPUC, the ownership structure for a publicly owned utility involves a local government body, and maybe customers and people who live in the area. This group of people would be responsible for setting the rates, and operating and investing in new facilities. Publicly owned utilities can also be financed through tax-free bonds and co-ops for people who can afford to pay in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This essentially means that communities can decide to achieve \u201cnet-zero greenhouse gas emissions through a fair and just transition,\u201d as outlined in the Green New Deal resolution, and invest in forms of renewable energy such as solar, wind, and water power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to a study<\/a> published in the Canadian Journal of Economics that focused on public and private electricity utilities in the US, \u201call but the largest publicly owned utilities deliver distribution services at lower costs than do their privately owned counterparts.\u201d The study also found that publicly owned utilities tend to provide more reliable, higher quality services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are already small publicly owned utilities operating on the local level all around the US. Forty-six municipalities<\/a> in California\u2014including major cities Sacramento, Los Angeles, and Palo Alto\u2014already have publicly owned electricity projects that provide some services to their residents. But these are smaller projects when compared to PG&E, which has a de facto monopoly in the California region with 16 million customers<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Local Green Energy Alliance, Community Choice energy, and other grassroots organizations in the East Bay Area are currently campaigning to block<\/a> the CPUC\u2019s efforts for a de facto PG&E bailout. And of course, California isn\u2019t the only state fighting investor-owned utilities. Currently, there\u2019s a campaign<\/a> in the state of Rhode Island to convert National Grid services to public ownership.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, investor owned utilities continue to put ratepayers at risk, and PG&E isn\u2019t the only example. Take Con Edison, which serves the New York region, for example. In December, a transformer explosion<\/a> turned the entire New York City sky aqua blue and put thousands of residents in the dark.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Bozuwa, if PG&E were to be publicly owned, it could potentially be designed to empower these local projects and regional distributors, as well as Community Choice Aggregators, boards that enable opt-on community options for alternative, renewable forms of energy for residents. Seven US states, including California, already have some Community Choice Aggregators, according to the EPA<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s about building multiple scales of public ownership, and not thinking about it as like \u2018oh, well the state will run all of this at the state level,\u2019 because it\u2019s a very large, very populous state,\u201d Bozuwa said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For perspective, 2019 is not the first time that PG&E has filed for bankruptcy. Back in 2001, a drought in the U.S. reduced the amount of energy<\/a> PG&E was able to import from states other than California (climate change makes droughts both more likely<\/a> and more intense<\/a>). That, combined with expensive wholesale rates<\/a> for electricity, drove the company into bankruptcy. In order to keep the company afloat, ratepayers had to pay $1.6 billion over the course of several years, and California had to give the company $3 billion in Energy Recovery Bonds to save ratepayers money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2019 and in years to come, California will continue to face heightened risk for wildfires and droughts\u2014things that could cause PG&E and other investor-owned utilities that rely on dirty-energy infrastructure to go bottom-up again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An express goal of the the Green New Deal resolution is \u201cto secure for all people of the United 15 States for generations to come\u2026climate and community resiliency.\u201d But we can\u2019t face upcoming decades of climate change with the utility system we have now. If we continue to rely on investor-owned utilities, they will continue to prioritize natural gas. Their systems will fail, wildfires will continue to happen, and ratepayers will pay the cost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Originally published by Motherboard<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Alexandria<\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

FRI, 2\/8\/2019 – BY\u00a0CAROLINE HASKINS (Occupy.com) THIS ARTICLE ORIGINALLY APPEARED ON MOTHERBOARD Al Drago\/Bloomberg On Thursday, a resolution for the Green New Deal\u2014a climate change-focused public infrastructure bill spearheaded by Congressperson Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez\u2014was released to the public. The resolution is just that\u2014a resolution, and not an actual bill. So it doesn\u2019t get into… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11051"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11051"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11051\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11053,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11051\/revisions\/11053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}