The goal -- no more coal

The California Energy Commission is close to finalizing regulations that effectively will ban the state's municipal utilities from purchasing long-term power contracts from out-of-state coal-fired power plants.
The CEC's action, scheduled for an April 25 meeting in Sacramento, is another step in implementing Senate Bill 1368, one of two major laws passed last year to reduce greenhouse gases.
The Public Utilities Commission has already passed its own SB 1368 regulations that apply to investor owned utilities, and now the CEC is preparing to do the same for the ones it regulates, which include the Sacramento Municipal Utility District and 37 other "munis" and small utilities across the state.
Several in Southern California, particularly Los Angeles Power and Water and utilities in Pasadena, Burbank and Anaheim, will be hit hard by the new rules. All get more than 4o percent of their electricity from out-of-state coal power.
As a result, these munis are lobbying the energy commission and urging it not to adopt the same tough rules handed down by the Public Utilities Commission.
Among other things, the PUC is requiring its utilities -- PG&E, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric -- not to finalize future power contracts until the PUC has reviewed them and certified them as complying with the new state law. By contrast, the munis want to enter into power contracts without prior CEC approval, with the energy commission only intervening if they found some problem after the fact.
Not surprisingly, environmentalists are protesting this aspect of the commission's rules. They believe it puts the burden on the CEC's limited staff to ferret out problems post facto, instead of forcing the munis to come to Sacramento before any contracts are signed and demonstrate their compliance with the law.
Key players here could be Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaragosa, who has a measure of control over LA Power and Water, and State Senate leader Don Perata, who authored SB 1368 and has control over the budget of the California Energy Commission.
You can read the proposed regs, and filings by the enviros and the munis here.