Earlier today, backers of a state constitutional amendment that aims to make solar power more affordable for consumers argued their case before the state supreme court.
The court has to approve the language of the amendment — making sure that it does what it says it will do and only that — in order for it to get on the 2016 ballot.
The initiative is called Floridians for Solar Choice. The Solar Choice amendment would embed in the state constitution the ability for solar power companies to install panels on homes and businesses and sell some of the power that's generated back to that home or business. In theory, this makes solar power more affordable for many who can't afford to buy and install their own solar panels.
Florida is one of four states that does not already allow this. Renewable energy advocates will tell you this is so because the system is absolutely rigged; major utilities in the state have an incredible amount of influence over legislators as well as the Public Service Commission, which is supposed to be keeping the industry in check but really isn't.
Advocates for Solar Choice, who come from all parts of the political spectrum, say utilities have monopolies in their service areas, and that needs to change. Supporters have said a constitutional amendment accomplishing this end isn't ideal; they would have preferred to seek expansion of solar power via state lawmakers. But the vast majority of lawmakers, as mentioned above, are beholden to utility companies, and thereby have ignored solar advocates' previous attempts to change the policy.
"[We] believe that voters should decide whether to remove a barrier that currently blocks access to clean, renewable solar power," said Pamela Goodman, president of the League of Women Voters of Florida, in a media release on Monday. "This issue has been brought to our legislature many times and has fallen on deaf ears. The citizens of Florida are taking it to the ballot box for much needed action as we await the Court’s decision.”
Meanwhile, the utility and fossil fuel industries have given tons of support, directly or indirectly, to a competing amendment initiative, the Consumers for Smart Solar proposal, which would literally enshrine the utility-favoring status quo in the constitution. Those pushing this amendment admit their proposal is in direct response to Solar Choice, which they're attempting to characterize as "shady" and a giveaway to "big, out of state solar companies." They claim the proposal will hurt consumers and local government.
Susan Glickman, director of the nonprofit Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, said none of this is true.
“The solar choice amendment doesn't require anyone to do anything," she said. "There's no mandates, there's no subsidies. It just allows for the choice, that if someone wants to buy electricity from someone other than their utility, they have that opportunity.”
Glickman told CL last week she doesn't see Consumers for Smart Solar even making it onto the ballot. Despite a slick Web site outlining its arguments, a formidable PR blitz and the enlistment of respected former lawmaker Dick Batchelor, she said, its sole purpose is to confuse and mislead voters, thereby siphoning petition signatures from the Solar Choice effort, which, if approved by the supreme court, would need more than half a million more signatures to get onto the ballot.
"[They] have a ton of money that they get from ratepayers to spend to confuse people and argue against the ratepayers' own interests. That's what's happening here. They are busy trying to build power plants and put major assets in their rate base when the cost of solar has come down exponentially,” she said.
She said such an effort to confuse voters "would be laughable if it wasn't so scary."
"They're just doing it to make it harder to gather signatures," Glickman said. "They are paying twice the going rate for petition gatherers and asking people to sign a noncompete. So they're trying to make the process of getting the signatures more difficult…If there's a cynical way to thwart the solar choice initiative that is so popular, they will do that and the utilities have all the money in the world to fund an operation like that and they've done it.”
Sarah Bascom of Bascom LLC, the public relations firm Consumers for Smart Solar hired to respond to such criticisms, denied the effort is a tactical ploy to keep Solar Choice off the ballot, instead calling it an "important policy initiative."
"It is an antidote to some of the biggest problems with their amendment," she said in an email. "It encourages solar while protecting consumers. Their amendment is crony capitalism at its worst. Their amendment rewrites Florida’s constitution to grant special privileges to one industry at great expense and risk to Florida consumers — particularly our seniors."
She admitted the effort is paying its canvassers a higher rate than its grassroots counterpart because they "started later in the process, so we have to pay more per signature in order to comfortably make the signature deadline" and that canvassers have to sign a noncompete agreement in order to work for Smart Solar.
Smart Solar has done significantly better in the polls, Bascom points out, garnering some 13 percent more percentage points than Solar Choice in a Mason-Dixon poll conducted in late July.
Glickman said she chalks that up to the complexity of the language of the Solar Choice amendment, which she said aims to be as specific as possible, given lawmakers' tendency to creatively interpret amendments passed by voters, and that the monied backers of the other amendment have had the budget to test their messaging on voters.
“It's very transparent that it's been done with polling and focus groups – Consumers for Smart Solar — the sound of it is great," she said. "What it really is is corporations for stifling solar. [It's] merely a cynical attempt to deceive people.”
This article appears in Aug 27 – Sep 2, 2015.