----- Forwarded Message ----- From: Camilla Feibelman, Rio Grande Chapter
<reply@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>To: "nmcheryl@xxxxxxxxx" <nmcheryl@xxxxxxxxx>Sent:
Thursday, February 21, 2019, 12:42:10 PM MSTSubject: Can you attend Saturday
for 100% carbon-free NM?
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| Hi Cheryl,
The most critical piece of state legislation this year and the biggest progress
for climate ever in New Mexico gets a crucial vote Saturday. Can you be there
to support it?
The Energy Transition Act creates an equitable transition from fossil fuels to
a clean-energy economy. It also lowers rates, provides significant reinvestment
in the Four Corners community, ensures San Juan coal plant is retired, and
creates a safety net for coal workers.
Labor and community groups like AFSCME, Building Trades and Somos Un Pueblo
Unido join the Sierra Club and almost every other environmental organization in
enthusiastic support of the Energy Transition Act, but the bill's few foes,
like the hard-right Rio Grande Foundation, are making a lot of noise.
The state Senate Conservation Committee will vote on this bill, SB 489,
Saturday. Please attend at 9 a.m. Saturday in Room 322 of the Roundhouse to
support the Energy Transition Act. Our opponents will be there; let's show our
support for a renewable-energy-powered New Mexico in much greater numbers.
Here's what the Energy Transition Act does:
-- Requires 50% renewable energy in New Mexico by 2030; 80% by 2040; and 100%
carbon-free energy by 2045. Those mandates are for our state's investor-owned
utilities (PNM, El Paso Electric and Southwestern Public Service). Co-ops get
five years longer to comply. That is huge progress toward protecting our
children from the biggest crisis facing humanity: climate change.
-- Stops the pollution from coal-fired San Juan Generating Station for good by
requiring that any facility on the San Juan premises meet pollution
requirements that coal plants are unable to meet. Without this legislation,
there is a very real danger that this plant could remain open, and no other
bill or scenario requires this plant to stop burning coal.
-- Provides significant reinvestment in the Four Corners community. This is why
this bill exists. Low-rate financing of the costs customers are already paying
for San Juan creates funding to reinvest in workers and the community. The
Energy Transition Act directs $20 million to San Juan County economic
development and requires 450 MW of replacement power in the same school
district as the plant to replace the lost property taxes.
-- Provides a safety net for San Juan plant and mine workers. The bill provides
another $20 million in severance payments and retraining for the plant and mine
workers. Again, securitization provides funding to ensure an equitable
transition for workers. Without this bill, there will be no means to take care
of employees who have worked hard to keep our lights on all these years.
-- Lowers rates. Yes, the Energy Transition Act would LOWER your current PNM
bill. This is another benefit of securitization. The costs that are being
refinanced in this bill are costs you're already paying if you're a PNM
customer. You would continue to pay them until 2053 if San Juan didn't close.
When PNM or other utilities build plants and invest in them (for new equipment
or pollution controls, etc.), it's a bit like making a loan to ratepayers, and
PNM gets to charge customers, plus a rate of return of about 10%. The Energy
Transition Act would allow PNM to sell low-interest bonds to recoup the
principle on its San Juan investments at 3-4% instead of the 10% customers are
currently paying. PNM gets its principle back but loses that entire 10% return.
That's a loss of about $16 million in profit yearly on this deal. Under any
scenario of San Juan closure, fuel costs and other plant expenses will also go
down considerably.
-- It makes it much less likely that PNM will replace San Juan coal with gas.
The bill's renewables requirements make PNM much more likely to replace their
coal power with renewable energy, but there's also language in the bill
requiring replacement power to be the most environmentally friendly and
cost-competitive option, meaning the PRC is more likely to reject gas as a
replacement source if the Energy Transition Act passes.
Answers to questions some of our supporters have had:
Does this take power from the Public Regulation Commission? The PRC will decide
PNM's case for abandoning San Juan coal plant regardless, but if the Energy
Transition Act doesn't pass, the PRC doesn't have the tools to provide
financial relief and job training for mine and plant workers and redevelopment
funds for San Juan County, as the ETA does. It can't require require 50%
renewables by 2030 and 80% by 2040, as this bill does. It can't direct
replacement power to be sited in San Juan County to replace lost property
taxes. That puts the Legislature in a much, much better position than the PRC
to create an equitable transition from coal to clean energy.
Would rates be lower if the PRC decided all the details of San Juan cost
recovery? Not necessarily, and even in the best-case scenario for ratepayers,
not by much. The Energy Transition Act would lower a typical $100 electricity
bill by about $1.80. Even if the commission significantly lowered PNM's
recovery of its "stranded costs" on San Juan (about $320 million) -- making the
company pay 50% of those costs -- that would only cut rates very slightly more
than the Energy Transition Act would, and it would leave workers and the Four
Corners community out in the cold.
Isn't PNM getting everything it wants? No. That's why this legislation took a
year to negotiate from what PNM wanted last year (a bill we and other groups
opposed). All the ownership guarantees in last year's bill have been removed.
PNM loses well over $100 million in profits over time. Funding for the Four
Corners community and workers more than doubled. The renewables standard means
PNM and New Mexico's other utilities and co-ops must transform their energy
portfolios for the better.
Would a "clean" Renewable Portfolio Standard be better? The Energy Transition
Act does a lot more than just a renewable portfolio increase (which was also
filed this session), and that's why we're strongly supporting this legislation.
This bill has an even more robust renewables requirement, but as pointed out
above, it also protects workers, the community and ratepayers.
This is rare legislation that benefits all stakeholders -- a win-win-win-win
for our children's health and safety, for ratepayers, for workers, and for the
Four Corners community.
We won't get this opportunity ever again. Please attend at 9 a.m. Saturday in
Room 322 of the State Capitol, 490 Old Santa Fe Trail, Santa Fe, to support SB
489, the Energy Transition Act.
Thanks for being part of a big moment of hope for New Mexico and future
generations.
Camilla Feibelman
Sierra Club Rio Grande Chapter director
riogrande.chapter@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
505-715-8388
P.S.: Check out my explainer on SB489 here |
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| Sierra Club Rio Grande Chapter |
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This email was sent to: nmcheryl@xxxxxxxxx
This email was sent by the Sierra Club Rio Grande Chapter
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