Demanding The Launch Of Clean Power In San Francisco

On July, 18, 2012, after nearly a decade of resistance from the Mayor's office and San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC), the Board of Supervisors passed legislation by a veto proof majority, to launch the CleanPowerSF program.

CleanPowerSF is planned to create thousands of jobs as the city builds hundreds of megawatts of solar, wind and energy efficiency projects in order to run San Francisco on 50% local, clean, renewable electricity within the next decade.

Since 2004, Our City has been an unwavering organizational anchor for the community coalition that has fought to bring CleanPowerSF to this launch point. The coalition recently won a series of victories which have helped ensure that CleanPowerSF will be strongly based in the installation of local clean energy sources, and will be offered at the same cost to customers as the price they currently pay for standard polluting power.

But San Francisco's Mayor Edwin Lee is now using procedural games to block the launch of the program, which was supposed to have begun in October 2013.

Click Here to ask the Board Of Supervisors to take strong action against Lee's interference.

For more information, read on..

PG&E's Corrupt Influence On Local Energy Policy

During the decade following the Board's passage of the original 2004 ordinance directing the SFPUC to draw up plans for CleanPowerSF, the program has been continuously hobbled and delayed by a series of corrupt San Francisco mayors who have been heavily influenced by campaign donations and other manipulations from the fossil fuel energy corporation, Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E).

PG&E is the private monopoly which currently supplies San Francisco with electricity. The corporation bitterly opposes CleanPowerSF, because the program will bring San Francisco community based, nonprofit, clean electricity, that will directly compete with PG&E's fossil fuel energy profits.

Recent History Of San Francisco Mayors On Clean Energy

In 2003, when work on CleanPowerSF planning was begun, the powerful politician Willie Brown was the mayor of San Francisco. Under the influence of PG&E and its campaign donations, Brown made certain that his appointees to the SFPUC, and the SFPUC staff, were people who would oppose the implementation of CleanPowerSF.

Soon after Willie Brown left the Mayor's office, he became a $200,000 per year paid consultant and lobbyist for PG&E. Brown also remains a powerful player in San Francisco politics. He and PG&E have molded and manipulated the Mayors who have followed him (first Gavin Newsom, and now Mayor Edwin Lee) to likewise do everything in their power to interfere with CleanPowerSF.

Mayor Edwin Lee Uses Procedural Games To Put CleanPowerSF On Hold

Mayor Edwin Lee won his election for office with extensive assistance from Willie Brown's powerful political machine, and the Lee campaign also received large donations from PG&E.

In August 2013, two months before CleanPowerSF was scheduled to launch and begin competing against PG&E with competitively priced, cleaner electricity, Mayor Lee threw a wrench into the gears of the program.

Lee pressured three members of his five member SFPUC Commission to vote 'no' on a minor procedural vote that would set program rates, a necessary first step to initiating the program. Since CleanPowerSF rates are now fully competitive with PG&E, there was no reason whatsoever for the SFPUC commissioners to oppose the ratesetting. But that is exactly what they did, and the program now sits in a bureaucratic limbo waiting to be launched.

Board Of Supervisors Has Power To Overrule Mayor Lee's Interference

Luckily, when the California legislature passed the 2002 state law which allows cities and counties to create programs like CleanPowerSF, it wisely put County Boards and City Councils in charge of these programs, not mayors. So the San Francisco Board of Supervisors has the authority to overrule Mayor Lee and the SFPUC and launch CleanPowerSF in spite of their interference.

What You Can Do

Email the San Francisco Board Of Supervisors Today!

Click on and then send to:

The Board of Supervisors

the following sample, or your own composition...

Sample Letter To Support The Launch Of CleanPowerSF:

Dear Supervisors,

I am outraged that Mayor Lee has used his political influence on the SFPUC to delay the launch of CleanPowerSF. It is crucial to worldwide efforts to reverse the climate crisis that San Francisco take a strong lead in local clean energy installation and green jobs as quickly as possible.

Please use your authority over CleanPowerSF, as granted to county boards and city councils by the State legislature, to begin the program immediately.

Also, please make sure that CleanPowerSF will run San Francisco on 50% locally generated clean electricity within the next decade, so that the program will deliver legitimate climate benefits and thousands of local jobs.

Thank You,

[Insert your name and street address here.]