Petition to Bring Community Choice Energy to Long Beach, CA

COVID-19 has severely impacted all our lives, and the recent protests for social justice have opened up community dialogue on the many injustices communities of color and other vulnerable communities experience. The impacts of climate change and heavy industrial practices are disproportionately borne by these communities in Long Beach. Community Choice Energy is an effort the City of Long Beach can participate in to begin addressing some of these issues by promoting and procuring cleaner energy to support the transition away from fossil fuels, and designing community programs that focus on reducing the burden from environmental hazards that impact these communities.

The City of Long Beach is already expecting budget shortfalls through 2022 due to the economic downturn. Local leaders are looking for innovative solutions to solve the economic, health, and social challenges identified by the COVID-19 pandemic and the social justice movement. We agree the City must prioritize providing medical support for the Long Beach ill and their health care providers. We owe it to them to do everything we can to reduce air pollution because studies show it increases the danger to this highly contagious respiratory virus, especially to the most vulnerable communities. A Long Beach Community Choice Aggregation (CCA), also informally known as Community Choice Energy program can help our city address both problems at this critical time. Existing CCAs are stepping up with millions of dollars in COVID-19 relief programs.

Community Choice Energy will bring clean power, good green jobs, and competitive electricity rates to Long Beach residential ratepayers and businesses. Forming a CCA will allow Long Beach a choice as to how and where we procure our electrical power. Long Beach ratepayers would no longer need to rely solely on Southern California Edison (SCE) to buy power for Long Beach. While state law requires SCE to procure more clean, renewable energy over time, a CCA will enable Long Beach to accelerate this process, negotiate favorable pricing for clean energy, and meet its 100% clean energy target and Climate Action and Adaptation Plan (CAAP) goals sooner. SCE is an investor-owned utility with its primary allegiance to shareholder return and has a long history of rate hikes.

Twenty-one CCAs are operating successfully in California, many already providing 100% clean energy to their customers. But more importantly, they are designing locally-tailored programs that respond to community needs. Several additional CCAs are launching soon, including San Diego and Santa Barbara, giving their residents and businesses access to more clean, equitable energy. CCAs can provide more competitive electricity rates than investor-owned utilities are able or willing to offer.

In December 2019, the City of Long Beach released the Community Choice Aggregation Feasibility Study. The feasibility study clearly states a local CCA would be a significant net revenue generator. Both scenarios analyzed showed a CCA could significantly and more aggressively reduce the City's carbon footprint than staying with SCE. State law enables cities to access a revenue stream typically only available to utilities and reinvest revenues into local CCA programs, so this opportunity should not be ignored. We owe it to the threatened future of our City to get started on this remarkable program.

There is a time constraint. The law governing the formation of a CCA (AB117) requires the City to file an Implementation Plan with the California Public Utilities Commission prior to the year it wishes to start the process of forming and launching an agency. CPUC Resolution E-4907 requires an additional one year before a CCA can be up and running while it hires staff, purchases adequate power resources, and positions itself to launch operations officially. The earliest that Long Beach could participate in a CCA would be 2022. Thus, time is of the essence to file a CCA Implementation Plan BEFORE DECEMBER 31, 2020. Doing so will get Long Beach into the queue necessary to begin the process.

Therefore, we urge the Long Beach City Council to move to approve the formation of a Long Beach Community Choice Energy program, either join an existing Community Choice Program (like Clean Power Alliance or Lancaster Clean Energy) or create its own, and to file a Community Choice Aggregation Implementation Plan with the California Public Utilities Commission no later than DECEMBER 31, 2020.