Column: Gavin Newsom is a Climate Champion. Why did he just crush community solar?

Source: Los Angeles Times |  By Sammy Roth

After months of outcry, the California Public Utilities Commission voted Thursday to approve a solar energy program that critics are sure will fail spectacularly, making it impossible for many people to access an innovative global warming solution. The 3-1 vote by Gov. Gavin Newsom’s appointees was the latest stain on the governor’s climate record — and a reminder, as Earth shatters temperature records, that it’s easier to talk about the urgency of the climate crisis than it is to act with urgency.

Matt Freedman, an attorney for TURN, said he was “bummed” to see the utilities commission “doubling down” on a bad outcome for community solar, after several weeks during which it looked like Newsom might be hammering out a compromise. Freedman told me he attended several meetings with staffers from the governor’s office, who were “very locked in” on drafting a community solar plan. Unfortunately, he said, the revised incentive program released by the commission two days before the vote included mostly minor changes — nothing that will help community solar gain much of a foothold in California, even as it plays an increasingly important role in helping other states chase their climate and renewable energy targets. The biggest change, Freedman said, involved a provision that would have rejected the incentive program pitched by community solar advocates as illegal under federal law — a bizarre claim that could have been used to undermine existing community solar programs in other states. Under pressure from bipartisan critics — including New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and Neil Chatterjee, a top energy official in the Trump administration — Newsom’s utilities commission struck that provision.