Enviros use TV ad to send warning shot to Legislature and prop up Crist

Enviros use TV ad to send warning shot to Legislature and prop up Crist

Naked Politics –

The Southern Alliance for Clean Energy today blasted a proposed energy rule that was quietly unveiled by the staff of the state's top utility regulators and launched an ad campaign airing in cable television and radio markets.

The ad is intended to influence the next utility debate before the Public Service Commission but also to prop up support for Gov. Charlie Crist in the next legislative fight on energy issues.

The group says their target is the PSC staff, which "has been doing the utility companies bidding," says Stephen Smith, the alliance's executive director. In fact, the ad refers only to unnamed "bureaucrats" while it clearly commends the governor, whose push for a tough renewable energy target was shot down by the Florida Legislature last session and punted to the PSC to come up with the proposal instead.

"What's good? Gov. Charlie Crist's green energy plan," the announcer says. "Renewable energy from wind, solar, farm grown crops. The clean solutions now. Gov. Crist you're right. Keep fighting big power for the renewable energy we need today."

It's true the proposed Renewable Portfolio Standard drafted by the PSC staff reads like the five-year plan for Florida's largest utility companies. But it's also true that the Legislature has shown it's not a big fan of opening the door to Crist's suggestion that 20 percent of the electricity in Florida be generated by renewable energy sources.

Leon Jacobs, a former PSC member who now works with the alliance, speculates that PSC staffers were just "trying to read the political tea leaves" from lawmakers and mistakenly attempted to "insulate the industry" by proposing a 1 percent cap on renewable energy.

"This rule is designed to kill renewable energy in Florida," said Jerry Karnas, Florida director of Environmental Defense. "We want to make sure it's crystal clear: this rule needs to be scrapped and re-written."

The rule is "the weakest, most anemic of anything that has been proposed" by any of the 33 states that have written similar renewable energy guidelines, Smith says. "The timeline is so long Charlie Crist will be over 90 years old" by the time it's completed.

The ad, financed by companies like Florida Crystals that want to cash in on the renewable energy market, is merely a "clear shot across the bow," Smith warned. The groups not only will push for guidelines that will jump start the renewable market in Florida but get solar, win and biomass generation online as soon as possible, he said. "We are going to monitor this process very carefully."