Governor Schwarzenegger's Solar Roofs Plan

Written by Kris Land

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Governor Schwarzenegger Signs Legislation to Complete Million Solar Roofs Plan

GOVERNOR SCHWARZENEGGER:

Good morning, everybody. First of all, I want to say thank you to Assemblyman Sam Blakeslee for being here today with us, Assemblyman Lloyd Levine, and then we have Bernadette Del Chiaro from the Environment California and, of course, Senator Murray, who is the author of SB 1. So thank you very much, all of you, for being here today.

And this is a very special occasion, because we are celebrating again, and I love that, when we have events where we celebrate achieving something. And Sacramento is achieving a lot this year, so Im very happy about that. It's a very bipartisan atmosphere in Sacramento.

But anyway, its great to be here at the Caltrans Building, which is a beautiful, beautiful building. And I want to thank Senator Kevin Murray for his great work for authoring SB 1, and in a few minutes we will be sitting right over there at the table and create some action and sign this bill.

But let me just tell you, this bill is about creating more solar roofs in California. When I ran for governor I vowed to make the environment a centerpiece of my administration, because I always believed very strongly that we can protect our environment and also go and promote the economy and expand the economy, and we have proven that in the last three years.

And thats why we also have pushed for the Million Solar Roofs. And we pushed and pushed and pushed last year, but we couldnt get it done all the way last year, so we finally made a partnership, created a partnership with the State Utilities Commission to enact the Million Solar Roof Plan so that we can build more homes and power more homes by sun energy, and not pollute with oil and gas.

The Million Solar Roofs will provide 3,000 megawatts, which is an equivalent of powering a million homes. And it is clean energy, which means there will be a reduction of greenhouse gas that will be going into the atmosphere by 3 million tons -- 3 million tons. This is an equivalent of taking 1 million cars off the road. Now, Senator Murrays bill will now make this much stronger, our partnership with the PUC from last year. This bill that we are signing will make it much stronger by bringing more utilities into the program, having builders offer solar to new homes, and raise the level of power that we can now sell back to the grid, which means that if you have solar panels and you produce more energy than you need, you can now sell back to the grid the energy.

So this is really terrific. This is what we wanted from the start, a system where families across our state can take advantage of clean solar power, and so that every rooftop can become a clean solar power plant. It is not enough to just be the caretaker of the environment and of our state, but it is also important that we give this state to the next generation in better shape than we inherited it. By following a comprehensive strategy of cutting down our fossil fuel, and being smart about conservation and using clean energy sources like solar, we can have a cleaner and healthier environment. And this is what this is all about, to make our economy grow and boom, but at the same time to really protect our environment. This is what my administration is all about, and this is also what the people behind me support. So with that, I want to introduce now Bernadette Del Chiaro from Environment California. Please welcome her. (Applause)

BERNADETTE DEL CHIARO:

Good morning. My name is Bernadette Del Chiaro, Im the Clean Energy Advocate with Environment California. Were a non-profit, non-partisan statewide environmental organization.

And Im absolutely thrilled to be here today. Its been a real privilege and a pleasure to work both with you, Governor Schwarzenegger, and Senator Kevin Murray and others, to make this vision of building a million solar roofs and bringing solar power and making it affordable for average, everyday Californians a reality here in California. This bill has been a long time coming, but there are some things that are well worth the wait, and well worth fighting for.

And on behalf of Environment California and our allies and friends in the environmental community and the clean energy community, we are proud to be able to commend Senator Murray and Governor Schwarzenegger for this bipartisan effort to bring solar power to California and bring it to the mainstream. It hasnt always been popular to champion solar power. Solar power has, for a long time, had the stigma of being something for a backwoods hippie or a Malibu millionaire, as opposed to something for Main Street.

And this initiative will change that, and the champions championing this solar power, these two leaders, has changed it in peoples minds. And the statistics back that up. When we first started this initiative in 2004, from January to August, about 1,300 Californians went solar. So far this year, during that same time period, 4 times the number of Californians have gone solar. So about 6,600 people, installing about 50 megawatts, which was the equivalent of a peaking power plant, that we often have to build in California to dig ourselves out of the troubles we get in during hot summer days. So were talking real progress, real benefits for the environment, benefits for our economy.

And in closing, I just want to say we do find ourselves facing a crisis with regards to our addiction to fossil fuels, both here in California and across the country. But it is in times of trouble that the true leaders come forward with big and bold solutions commensurate with the problem, and thats what we have here today. So again, were proud to be here, and commend loudly Schwarzenegger and Murrays efforts here in the Million Solar Roofs Bill. Thank you very much. (Applause)

SENATOR MURRAY:

Hi. Im Senator Kevin Murray, and first of all let me thank my partners in this, Governor Schwarzenegger and Bernadette Del Chiaro from Environment Now, our sponsor of the bill. I also want to thank my colleagues, Assemblyman Levine and Assemblyman Blakeslee, which showed this bill has been a bipartisan effort all along. And we had naysayers on both sides of the aisle, and pretty much you dont know that youve done anything significant until people on both sides are complaining about it, so thats some evidence that weve done a good job.

I also would be remiss in not thanking my staffer, Brian Crabb, who is here with us today, who -- without him, who actually shepherded this bill, without him this really wouldnt have happened.

And I want to make two additional points. In addition to the great environmental benefits, one of the things that this bill and this package allows us to do is have energy independence. No one can gain the sun. No one, no trader, can play games with the cost of your energy once youve got solar panels on them.

The other thing is that all of the money that is spent here on expanding solar, ratepayers will actually get almost a rebate back of that, because thats also a number of power plants that we dont have to build, and that you dont have to be charged for.

And the last thing is that one of the most important things in the bill is that builders of new homes, new developments over a certain size, will be required to offer solar power as part of the options. So when you go into buy a new home, youll pick your carpet, youll pick your tile, and hopefully youll pick what type of solar roof you want. So we want to make this part of the fabric of society. And with that, I think we ought to go make some law.

GOVERNOR SCHWARZENEGGER:

Lets create some action. Thank you very much, Senator. (Applause) And again, before we sign the bill, I want to just say thank you very much for your great leadership on that. Its great to work with you up there, because youre a big believer in the environment and in solar power. And its great when Democrats and Republicans work together. This is a perfect example of how certain things are not at all political, that you can actually just serve the people of California. So thank you very much. (Applause)

* * *

Well, now its official. And if you have any questions, please feel free to ask.

QUESTIONS/ANSWERS

Q: How much does it cost for a typical house, to put solar on?

GOVERNOR: I think its 15,000 dollars, approximately.

MURRAY: Roughly 15,000 dollars.

Q: Is it worth it?

MURRAY: Absolutely.

GOVERNOR: Its a good question, though. But just like I said earlier, what makes it great is that now if you put more solar panels on your house than you really need, it becomes a great investment, because you can now put solar back, the energy back on the grid, so its really terrific. And you can make your money back, you can save a lot of money with that, and you keep the environment clean.

Q: (IA)

GOVERNOR: I cant hear you. Do we have a microphone?

Q: Any estimates as to how long it will take California to get to a million solar-powered homes?

GOVERNOR: Well, our goal is to do it in the next 10 years, but I think that it will be even faster. And I think what is good is that it is, as you have heard earlier, there is an increase in demand, and the more there is an increase in demand, the more it brings the costs down of how much it costs to really put the solar roof up there. So I think it will be much, much cheaper. Its kind of like with the cell phones, that the more people buy cell phones, the more the prices came down. And this is what we want to do. Eventually this whole thing is going to be probably 2,000 dollars to put the solar panels on your roof.

Q: Senator Murray, would you respond to concerns that the leadership had not wanted the Governor to have an election year bill signing on this measure, that it was very difficult to get this through the legislature because of the politics involved?

MURRAY: Absolutely untrue. No one has ever spoken to me or, I think, Mr. Levine or Mr. Blakeslee, about that. This has always been a bipartisan effort, and no one -- you know, again, we have our political differences, but again, this is one of the examples of us agreeing on an issue and staying together on that issue even through some tough times. There were some naysayers, but it had nothing to do with the politics of it.

STAFF: One more question.

Q: Governor, your opponent in the fall suggests that you are a late bloomer to environmentalism, that if it was really in your heart you would have been active prior to getting into politics. Respond to that?

GOVERNOR: Im very happy to be able to now be in a position where I can really do things for the environment. And when I campaigned in 2003, three years ago, I made it very clear that the environment is going to be a centerpiece of my administration, that Im going to be working very, very hard to make sure to protect our ocean, to protect our coastline, to make sure to protect our forests, our water, our air, to make sure that we get more of the polluting cars off the roads, to enact the Carl Moyer Act, to have our government buildings be more energy efficient by the year 2015, 20 percent more energy efficient.

I also promised that we will be building hydrogen fueling stations up and down our state to create hydrogen fueled cars, to inspire people, to do everything we can. And also to put land aside for the future generations, and thats exactly what we have done, 25 million acres of the Sierra Nevada Conservancy. Right now we are petitioning the Bush Administration to put aside an additional 4 million acres that are roadless right now, that we want to keep roadless.

So we are going to continue fighting, because I want to prove to the rest of the world that you can protect the environment and also have an economic expansion and boom. And we have proven that in the last three years, and Im very proud of that. And the only reason why we were able to do it is by having really strong environmental groups that are fighting for it, and also to have great legislators that believe in the same thing. And we all worked together, Democrats and Republicans, we worked together. We are going to make California the cleanest state and the cleanest place in the world.

Thank you very much. (Applause)

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