Governor, House "leadership" food-fight over energy efficiency and solar rebates

The following appeared in the Miami Herald yesterday and I can't believe how insane our legislative leadership is. The Senate "budget chief" JD Alexander clearly talks out of his butt on a regular basis.  He is quoted as saying that solar panels take "as much energy to make a solar panel as it likely generates in its entire life" which is the biggest pile of crap ever blurted out of someone's uninformed mouth in a very long time.

Energy rebates stalled amid tiff between Crist, lawmakers

 There was plenty of heat over lawmakers' refusal to consider Gov. Crist's pitch to make Florida eligible for $31.5 million in energy rebates.

BY LEE LOGAN, Herald/Times Tallahassee Bureau

TALLAHASSEE -- Payments for two popular green energy rebate programs are stalled because of a high-profile budget disagreement between Gov. Charlie Crist and the Legislature.


Florida is in line for $31.5 million in federal stimulus money for the 2006 solar rebate program and a new program that helps people modernize their air conditioners.


Crist had asked a special legislative commission to authorize the funding as it made adjustments to the state budget Wednesday. But lawmakers ignored the request, arguing that only the full Legislature, not the budget commission, could authorize the money.


``Florida has already received federal approval to use the funds,'' Crist said Tuesday in a letter to House Speaker Larry Cretul and Senate President Jeff Atwater. ``I continue to encourage you to act quickly so that these funds can begin flowing into Florida's marketplace.''


Crist said $13.9 million is available for the popular solar rebate program, which ran out of money because of tight budgets and owes Floridians $52.7 million in unpaid rebates.


Crist asked for money in this year's budget to reduce the backlog, but the lawmakers ``affirmatively declined'' the request, said Senate budget chief J.D. Alexander, R-Lake Wales. He argues the program rewards rich people who can afford to buy solar systems. ``It takes as much energy to make a solar panel as it likely generates in its entire life,'' Alexander said. ``I really doubt that this is a good investment for the people of Florida.''

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From Grist online mag: Florida governor’s race: Sink vs. Scott

by Jonathan Hiskes, September 9th, 2010

Florida governor candidate Rick Scott is largely an enigma on energy and environmental issues. The hospital-chain executive, who eked out a surprise win over an establishment candidate in the Republican primary, has no record in public office to evaluate. His website's environment page consists of terse pledges to protect beaches and the Everglades. He hasn't been bringing up environmental issues on the campaign trail. When a reporter asked him about the scientific consensus on climate change, he said, "I have not been convinced," and was unsure what further evidence could convince him.


Scott would seem to be more certain on one issue: his support for offshore drilling. "It's a naïve, knee-jerk reaction to call for a ban on drilling," he says on his website in response to the Deepwater Horizon blowout that sent oil washing up on Florida Panhandle shores.

Yet Scott has backed off on this position too, saying in July, "We are not going to drill now. It's not safe. It doesn't make any sense ... [but] if we figure out some day that it's safe I think we ought to look at it.''

His opponent, Democratic state treasurer Alex Sink, has revealed more of her cards. She came out strongly opposed to offshore drilling when Republican lawmakers proposed opening state waters last year. She has released a detailed clean-energy plan centered on promoting efficiency, entrepreneurship, and partnerships between businesses and the state's universities.

"Right now, Florida's lack of a clear vision and a consistent energy policy is costing Floridians good jobs -- that ends when I am governor," she said in a news release.

So far, environmental issues haven't gotten much attention in Florida's jobs-focused gubernatorial race, despite the state's vulnerability to climate change and its largely untapped renewable-energy potential. Florida is particularly susceptible to sea-level rise, saltwater encroaching on its water supply, and hurricanes and tropical storms of increased intensity. And the Sunshine State would seem to be a natural hotspot for solar installations, yet it generates less solar electricity than New Jersey (even Massachusetts and Connecticut outperform it on a per-capita basis).

That's not for lack of effort from departing Gov. Charlie Crist, who became an unlikely climate leader, enacting a climate plan in 2007 and joining fellow Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger in organizing state-level action during the Bush years. But Florida's legislature prevented him from taking important steps, like implementing a renewable energy standard -- something 27 other states have used to attract cleantech businesses.

A renewable standard "is the holy grail of the [Florida] environmental community, something they've been working on for years," said Adam Rivera of Environment Florida. Sink supports one, while Scott hasn't made his position clear.

Florida's popular solar rebate program has a $40 million, 15,000-application backlog, and whether the next governor refuels it will be an early signal of his or her priorities, Rivera said.

The state also enacted a law last year that discouraged sprawl by making it easier for developers to build in dense urban areas. But a judge ruled it unconstitutional last month, and it could take leadership from the governor's office to pass a new version next year. [Update: A Florida commenter says the law wasn't clearly "anti-sprawl." While encouraged urban infill, it also made exurban growth easier; it's been called a sop to developers in response to the building-industry collapse.]

And, of course, Florida wields huge influence in national debates as a swing state and one poised to gain congressional seats in the upcoming redistricting process -- which the governor will oversee.

So it's worth knowing where the candidates stand on green issues, even if they aren't bringing them up.

Read the rest on Grist

Only UF makes Sierra "Cool Schools" list

Sad but expected.  Only the University of Florida seemed to even respond to the Sierra Club environmental performance survey and even then were near the bottom of the pile - #84 of 100.

FIU, UM, how come you didn't try to make the list?  There's a good push at both schools to remake their image as "green" universities.  Hopefully they'll buck up and try to make the list next year.

A telling comment from someone else (not me) on the University of Central Florida - home to the nationally recognized Solar Energy Center - says:
 

...the conservation efforts of the students for a whole year are simply blown away by "Light up UCF" a light show for 50 nights from November 20 through January 8 with Ice Skating (in Florida), Ferris Wheel, Carousel, Ice Slide, Santa's Workshop, Free Holiday Movie Screenings, etc. They invite the whole state in and provide free parking. Thanks to the rest of the country for taking global warming and the attendant sea level rise seriously. Here in the most vulnerable state, a peninsula sticking out into the slowly rising ocean, we do not seem to care enough to even dim our lights.

 
 To view which schools DID make the cut, go to Cool Schools

St. Pete Times: State owes Floridians $52.7 M in unpaid solar rebates

This is how you kill an industry, promise something and then reneg.  Such behavior - by the State and from less than honest installers - will shred credibility and make everyone in the business seem to be a shyster.  Shame on the State for consistently underfunding the program and knowingly letting it get this out-of-control.

______________________

By Cristina Silva, Times Staff Writer
In Print: Tuesday, August 3, 201

 
The state owes Floridians $52.7 million in unpaid solar energy rebates and has no immediate plan to honor its financial promise. More than 15,800 people await the rebates, which were dangled before homeowners and businesses to encourage greater investment in solar energy technologies such as solar-power water heaters and electric systems. The state's new fiscal year, which started in July, marks the second consecutive year that the Florida Legislature has refused to fund the popular program. Some people have been on the waiting list for years, said Travis Yelverton, deputy director of the Governor's Energy Office.

read the rest of the article here

Alex Sink unveils renewable energy plan in Miami

Alex Sink paid a visit to local solar products distributor, Sun Electronics, this last week to announce her energy strategy for Florida.  Not surprisingly based on the backdrop of a warehouse full of solar panels, her plan calls for a serious push into renewables and to open the grid to homes and commercial establishments.

For too long, mega-utilities have dominated the "market" for solar, wind, etc by making it difficult to connect to the grid, insisting on outrageous insurance riders, and sucking the oxygen out of renewables by latching their massively subsidized nuclear ambitions onto the tiny little toe-hold that solar, wind, biomass, and efficiency have in the energy mix.

The gubernatorial hopeful sees the struggling solar industry as a gateway to new Florida jobs and a clean/green tech hope for a diversified economy too heavily dependent on tourism, agriculture, and other lower wage jobs.

I've read a number of comments attached to the story in the Miami Herald and the Tampa Tribune (same story by Mary Ellen Klass ran in both papers) that attack solar as being "too expensive" and the usual nonesense about it "only working when the sun is out" by the usual know-nothings.  What CFO Sink calls for is a smart suite of policies that will encourage the growth of an industry that is absolutely exploding throughout the rest of the world.  Even within the US, Florida is competing with California, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Tennessee, and about a half-dozen other states that are all vying to be the economic center of the new green energy economy.  South Florida cities and counties are already jockeying to compete for these naescent industries, but the State has been the biggest impediment.  With better policies - like adopting legislation enacting the solar property tax protection amendment to the state constitution, an agressive RPS that the formerly Republican Governor and the State PSC called for, fully funding the rebate program through a tiny public benefit trust fund, and tax credits for expansion and relocation for solar and wind manufacturing firms - we'd have a chance to compete.

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Story in the Miami Herald


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