California’s Energy Crisis

As a new Assembly member I am faced with helping solve a complex energy supply problem that I didn’t help create or support. However, it is now up to the Legislature to help the governor find the best way to maintain electric service for consumers at the best possible price.

We need to create new energy supplies and upgrade transmission lines without compromising the hard-fought air-quality standards that protect the health of our children.

Many people from the White House to the State House--business leaders and energy providers--have been quick to denounce California’s environmental regulations as the cause of the problem. They suggest that our desire to ensure clean water and air has held up the building and siting of critical new power plants. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Not one single power plant has been blocked in this state because of environmental restrictions. Right now, efforts are underway to bring 20,000 megawatts of new power on line by June 2004. The state Legislature, in fact, has encouraged the rapid deployment of 5,000 megawatts of new power to be available this summer. Only four proposed power plants were ever delayed--and in each of those cases, it was rival power generating companies, not environmentalists who raised objections.

We can do some things to increase our supply of power and to speed the building of new plants. But we must not pursue misguided short-term energy gains in exchange for long-term negative health impacts. We must prudently invest to reduce demand on the energy grid and increase energy supplies that do not compromise our hard-fought environmental protections.

FRAN PAVLEY

41st Assembly District