Schwarzenegger burned on solar bill in California

San Jose Mercury News, Calif. --Aug. 27

Aug. 27--Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger suffered a political defeat Thursday when a bill he backed to promote solar-powered homes was defeated in a legislative committee in favor of a competing proposal that did not involve a possible rate increase.

The Assembly's Utilities and Commerce Committee voted 4-2 against the bill, SB 199, by Sen. Kevin Murray, a Culver City Democrat and perennial solar-home booster who amended his own stalled plan a week ago to incorporate the Republican governor's 11th-hour proposal.

"The governor is disappointed," said Schwarzenegger spokeswoman Ashley Snee. "This bill was a very important first step toward achieving the goal of 1 million solar homes in California."

Murray was not immediately available for comment. Lawmakers are scrambling to wrap up the legislative session today.

The utilities committee voted 7-4 in favor of a competing solar-homes bill by Sen. Debra Bowen, D-Redondo Beach, sending her plan to the Assembly floor.

Both bills promote use of solar-power systems in California through rebates for those who install them.

Bowen's bill differed from the governor's plan primarily in its source of funding. She wants to use existing but underused funds set aside for programs like those that pay large customers to voluntarily accept outages when supplies are tight.

Schwarzenegger would set aside $230 million in existing funding for renewable-energy programs, but authorize a rate increase of 0.05 cents a kilowatt-hour if needed to reach his goal of a million more solar homes in 13 years.

Environmentalists favored the Schwarzenegger-Murray bill for its stronger funding, but consumer advocates backed Bowen's plan because it avoided rate increases.

"We'll take a small step forward," said Bernadette Del Chiaro, clean-energy advocate for Environment California, which backed Murray's bill. "It's still a solar bill."

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