On June 16, the SLO City Council passed its hotly contested “clean energy” building code that favors all-electric development over buildings with natural gas, while earlier the same day, the SLO County Board of Supervisors officially walked away from Monterey Bay Community Power.
SLO’s new building code, adopted unanimously by the City Council on June 16, promotes all-electric development by offering technical, financial, and marketing support to builders who pursue it.
On the flip side, developers who want natural gas in their projects must meet energy efficiency requirements that exceed the usual standards, and those buildings must be pre-wired for an electric retrofit. Builders of new commercial and high-rise residential buildings must also install rooftop solar panels under the new code.
The building initiative is part of the city’s push to reach carbon-neutrality by 2035. According to SLO, natural gas accounts for 53 percent of its building-related carbon emissions, and buildings make up for 29 percent of citywide emissions.
The council passed a prior version of the code in September 2019, but that faced numerous challenges, including a complaint from the SoCalGas labor union to the Fair Political Practices Commission. The complaint alleged that Councilmember Andy Pease had a conflict of interest since she owns a local architectural consulting firm.
As the council prepared to take a new vote on the code without Councilmember Pease, the Utility Workers Union of America’s regional president, Eric Hofmann, threatened to stage a protest in the city during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“If the city moves forward with another reading on a gas ban I can assure you there will be no distancing in place,” Hofmann wrote.
Since its initial adoption in 2019, the city made some revisions to the code in response to stakeholder input. The code no longer charges fees to builders who use natural gas. Those revisions helped earn the support of the SLO Chamber of Commerce and Councilmember Erica Stewart, who’d initially voted against the policy.
“I’ve seen this policy morph quite a bit. I’m thankful for the incentive focus,” Stewart said. “You’re not going to lose all gas possibility.”
SoCalGas, the Western States Petroleum Association, and the Central Coast Homebuilders’ Association all opposed the new code. They argued the requirements would effectively ban natural gas in new buildings and increase housing costs and utility bills.
“With many Californians out of work, families and businesses struggle to get by,” SoCalGas spokesperson Tim Mahoney said during the meeting. “It’s unclear how this proposal will keep [energy] affordable to working families.”
Hours before the city passed its new building code, the SLO County Board of Supervisors voted 3-1 to abandon its exploration of Monterey Bay Community Power (MBCP), which will soon become Central Coast Community Energy as it expands through most of SLO and Santa Barbara counties.
The board reviewed an analysis of MBCP’s fiscal outlook, which was positive, before it decided not to join the Community Choice Energy public utility that procures carbon-free energy on behalf of participating residents.
First District Supervisor John Peschong, 5th District Supervisor Debbie Arnold, and 4th District Supervisor Lynn Compton said they opposed the “opt-out” format of MBCP, which requires customers to opt out of MBCP if they favor PG&E, and not the inverse.
“I still can’t get my arms around it,” Peschong said.
Compton said MBCP’s electric bill savings of $3 per month would merely “buy me a nice dinner at my favorite restaurant.”
“It’s a new level of government,” she said.
SLO County joins Atascadero and Buellton as the only three jurisdictions on the Central Coast that’ve not become MBCP members.
Second District Supervisor Bruce Gibson was the lone dissent, with 3rd District Supervisor Adam Hill absent.
“In the history of this board making poorly reasoned decisions, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a day where flimsier excuses are used to deny the residents of this county the opportunity for something that’s going to benefit them,” Gibson said. Δ
This article appears in Food and Drink 2020.
This is a great summary of these two decisions. Good job, Peter.
I’d like to add that John Peschong said at the October 2019 meeting about Community Choice that if if saved money for his constituents he would vote for it. The new study says unequivocally that it does… yet he still chose not to vote for it. I don’t know if that original statement was a lie or if PG&E lobbyists got to him, but it’s a stunning abdication of his responsibility to his constituents. He not only refused to offer county residents a choice to save money on electricity but he wasted their money by commissioning a fourth $80k study that he apparently had no intention of considering… because as this article says, this study was quite positive about the prospects for joining MBCP.
A sad sight to watch, the continued apprehension by certain supervisors despite their concerns being answered. Politics blocking true community benefits again. Thanks for spending so much on independent studies to (not) consider joining an agency that is already independently audited! All their info is not only audited, but also publicly available: http://www.mbcommunitypower.org/background…
Thank you for concluding on such a powerful quote: “In the history of this board making poorly reasoned decisions, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a day where flimsier excuses are used to deny the residents of this county the opportunity for something that’s going to benefit them,” Gibson said.
One of the Debbie Arnold’s reasons for opposing community choice was the unreliability of renewables. She obviously didn’t understand that the transition to renewable energy is mandated by the state. Also, that PG&E actually uses more renewable energy in their power mix than MBCP.