A union demand that only the highest grade of licensed
electricians could install the systems has been weakened. This is
marginally good news for the solar industry, particularly the
thousands of installers and small businesses that typically do not
have, or need, the highest level of electrical licensing, which
goes by the designation "C-10." The vast majority of these workers
could have been excluded from doing work under the initiative.
Typical solar installers in California's solar industry have the
lower-level "C-46" licensure.
According to Adam Browning of the solar advocacy group, the Vote
Solar Initiative, while the requirement for C-10 was dropped, a
separate provision was added that defines electrical work as
"anything that connects an electrical device of 100 volt/amps." In
the solar context, under this provision people putting simple snap
connects on solar panels would have to be electricians. He added,
however, that current C-46 installers would be grandfathered in
through the bill and not necessarily subject to this provision.
Browning called the provision a deal stopper because it would
hinder typical solar installations and, perhaps more importantly
from a political perspective, is a "stick in the eye" to the
carpenter's union whose workers often do some low-level electrical
work.
What is also a major issue with the bill is the so-called
prevailing wage amendment. Prevailing wage levels are set by the
state to ensure that laws requiring contracts to go to the lowest
bidder don't result in depressed pay rates. The bill passed on
Thursday was allowed to include a union-backed provision requiring
contractors to pay prevailing wages to workers on nonresidential
development.
Solar industry sources argue that the higher union wages could
effectively extinguish any cost savings in the bill for solar
energy, which is SB 1's primary objective.
"When we ran our model using these prevailing wage rates the costs
to the state for the Million Solar Roofs Initiative were increased
by $750 million," said Barry Cinnamon, president of Akeena Solar,
a solar systems installation company.
The union-backed amendment splintered support for the bill in
Thursday's session. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Sen.
John Campbell, R-Irvine, who had been a co-author of the bill,
issued an angry statement on Thursday calling the amendment a
"hostile union takeover" of the bill that would increase its costs
by 30 percent.
"The whole point of this bill was to create incentives for a
technology that is currently too expensive so that over time it
will become cost-competitive," Campbell said in a prepared
statement. "Now, the unions will be artificially increasing the
cost of the already too expensive technology in order to line
their own pockets."
Bernadette Del Chiaro, clean energy advocate for Environment
California, said that Thursday's committee vote was completely
along party lines with all the Democrats voting unanimously for
the bill and all Republicans voting against it.
And in a further symbolic and ominous gesture, Senator Campbell
removed his authorship of the bill at Thursday's hearing. This
Republican dissension was almost exclusively a result of the
prevailing wage issue and could ultimately doom the bill from
receiving a signature from the Governor, a major proponent of
comprehensive solar legislation for the state.
"The amendments were substantive and catastrophic," Browning of
Vote Solar said. "The question is whether they're (the unions)
trying to send an ineffective bill that the Governor will have to
veto or whether this is the next shot in a negotiating ploy. I
feel like we are getting played and that the bill is set up for
failure."
