“California is and has always been a solar state. AB 1139 was out of step with the deep and wide popularity of rooftop solar in the golden state and worthy of the resounding rejection it got today.”
Sacramento, CA — The California Solar and Storage Association (CALSSA) released the following statement on AB 1139’s failure* to earn a majority support in the California Assembly today.
Solar enthusiasts are pleased the state’s most representative legislative body rejected AB 1139 – Assembly member Lorena Gonzalez's utility profit grab bill. The legislature saw through the smokescreen of negativity levied on solar energy as simply an effort by the big investor-owned utilities to change the rules in their favor so they can profit off the energy created by solar consumers and eliminate a growing competitor in the energy market.
AB 1139 would have moved California backward in its efforts to move to clean energy. It would have broken a promise to hundreds of thousands of solar consumers by adding new fees and reducing the credit they receive for excess energy sent back to the grid. It would have taken California from leading the nation in expanding solar in working- and middle-class neighborhoods to a solar unfriendly state where clean energy is accessible only to the rich. California is and has always been a solar state. AB 1139 was out of step with the deep popularity of rooftop solar in the golden state and worthy of the resounding rejection it received today.
Now the thousands of solar consumers, workers, small business leaders, and environmentalists who made their voices heard in the California legislature, will turn their grassroots efforts to making sure rooftop solar continues to grow and distribute the benefit of job-creating, clean, affordable energy to communities all over the state as the California Public Utilities Commission considers adjustments to net metering in the coming months. People can sign a petition to Governor Newsom and the CPUC at www.SaveCaliforniaSolar.org. So far, 30,000 people have joined the campaign effort.
*Note: while AB 1139 failed to earn majority support in the California Assembly today, it is still possible for the legislation to come up for reconsideration from now through June 4th.