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This year’s clean energy and climate justice policy advocacy was filled with ups, downs, wins and loses but the Hammond Climate Solutions team is grateful for the strides we were able to help with to ensure a just and livable future for all. Here is a look back on our policy work in 2021, much of which was done with various partners that we’re grateful to be working with.
Our policy advocacy kicked off with the introduction of California Assembly Bill 1139 (AB 1139), introduced by Assemblymember Lorena Gonzalez in February 2021. The bill is the most aggressive solar attack to date, and it would have made drastic changes to the rules for California’s net energy metering (NEM), the solar agreement, which would have resulted in payback periods for rooftop solar investments of over 45 years. In addition to changes for new solar producers, the bill proposed these changes for all existing customers as well, changing the presumed protections for over 1.3 million solar producers statewide. Our advocacy included meeting with the author of the bill and sponsors to advocate for changes, rallying voices in opposition when the bill was introduced in assembly committees and presentations to local and statewide organizations to collect sign-ons for multiple letters. Thankfully, we were successful in defeating the bill and in rallying enough opposition locally that none of the six assembly members representing San Diego County, aside from the bill’s author, voted yes. This was a huge victory as rooftop solar and energy storage is a key solution to stopping the climate crisis, lessening environmental racism, providing grid resilience and supporting green jobs!
In between the small wins and fights, we have been leading a year-long fight to protect and expand access to rooftop solar during the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) proceeding to determine the future solar agreement in the Golden State. Attacks from the California investor-owned utilities, Natural Resources Defense Council (which has a history of aligning with the monopoly utilities companies, which you can read about here) and other utility-aligned, anti-solar groups have resulted in a proposed decision to drastically reduce benefits for solar customers, making rooftop solar inaccessible to all but the very wealthy. Hammond Climate Solutions has helped to build a grassroots coalition of environmental and climate organizations, schools, cities, elected officials and more who are all standing up to protect and expand access to rooftop solar. Through our advocacy and coalition building, we have helped five cities in our region submit letters or resolutions to the CPUC and Governor Newsom, advocating for a strong net energy metering agreement, the agreement that has allowed rooftop solar to become increasingly accessible to working class families, schools, small businesses and nonprofits. More information on the recently-proposed decision, its impacts and how you can help protect rooftop solar as a climate solution can be found here.
Alongside efforts to protect rooftop solar and expand solar access in communities of concern, locally we were also very involved with a coalition advocating for the City of San Diego to cut ties with a fossil fuel corporation when renewing its gas and electric franchise agreements, which was up for renewal for the second time in a century. The gas and electric franchise agreements would have determined whether we could build a clean energy future or if we would have been locked into another long term agreement with dirty fossil fuels. After calling in to countless city council and committee meetings, attending meetings with city council members and organizing rallies and press conferences, we were confident that San Diegans made their voices clear that the broken energy system under San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) was not working, and after over an hour of public comments in opposition to awarding the franchise agreement to SDG&E, the city council disappointed us in a 6-3 vote. SDG&E promised programs and funding in order to secure the franchise agreements, including a Solar Equity Fund to subsidize solar for low-income families, however after a few stakeholder meetings which Hammond Climate Solutions attended, there has not been any progress in moving the program forward. We plan to stay engaged with helping shape the Solar Equity Fund to be as beneficial to San Diegans as possible.
Other energy related advocacy efforts have also included advocating for cities and San Diego County to join San Diego Community Power (SDCP), San Diego’s largest community choice energy program. This year, San Diego County and National City both joined SDCP, securing a pathway to 100 percent clean energy.
Although the majority of our advocacy this year has been energy related, we were also involved in a number of wins for building electrification ordinances around the county. Through our involvement in the San Diego Building Electrification Coalition, we were able to help in successfully urging Encinitas and Solana Beach to pass all electric building reach codes for new construction buildings, a huge win considering buildings make up a significant portion of the region’s greenhouse gas emissions. In addition to securing building electrification ordinances, we have also helped in advocating for a regional transportation plan, a truly innovative and first of its kind plan that will bring our regional transportation system to where it should be, getting people out of their cars and into other modes of sustainable transportation. Through our membership with the San Diego Green New Deal Alliance, we have also been advocating for zero carbon policies as well as family sustaining green jobs and a just transition for workers.
While most of our advocacy and policy work was focused on local and statewide efforts, Hammond Climate Solutions was also involved in a federal advocacy effort in partnership with the California Green New Deal Coalition to encourage a federal infrastructure package that would not only provide much needed funding for failing infrastructure, but also provide funding for climate and resiliency efforts with a focus on creating good green jobs.
Although this year has had climate activists on the defense fighting against utility attacks, we are hopeful next year will bring legislation and policies that can lead to a productive and meaningful 2022. In addition to our success in our policy advocacy, we have also had success with the programs that Hammond Climate Solutions manages and with the San Diego Climate Hub collaborations. To learn more about our other work throughout the year, visit our recent blog post, Celebrating Climate Action - 2021 Year in Review.
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The 2023-2024 budget Governor Gavin Newsom released earlier this month makes cuts to some of the state’s most impactful climate programs and initiatives due to a decline in the state’s General Fund.
In 2022, California saw the devastating effects of the climate crisis as wildfires, droughts, floods and record-breaking heat waves impacted our most vulnerable communities across the state. It is clear that California needs to take aggressive measures to accelerate the state’s transition to clean energy, reduce carbon emissions and transform our transportation system. Unfortunately, while it is clear that the state should increase funding for climate initiatives, the 2023-2024 budget Governor Gavin Newsom released earlier this month makes cuts to some of the state’s most impactful climate programs and initiatives due to a decline in the state’s General Fund.
We often say that communities of concern are often hit first and worst with the impacts of the climate crisis, and California is witnessing that now with multi-family affordable housing complexes being flooded, infant mortality rates increasing in areas where there is significant air pollution as a result of fossil fuels and long term health issues like asthma and cancer have higher occurrences in communities of concern.
Transportation
With transportation being responsible for more than half of the state’s carbon emissions, it is clear that climate investments in transportation need to be prioritized not only for the state to meet its climate goals, but also because pollution from transportation is causing long term adverse health outcomes for communities of concern. In 2022, the state budget included $13.8 billion for transportation programs for projects to advance rail and transit connectivity, improve safety for bicyclists and pedestrians and incentives for zero emission vehicles. This year, the budget includes a $2.7 million reduction in funding from last year making billion dollar cuts or delays in funding for programs.
Energy
Although the Governor’s budget states that California “prioritizes affordability, reliability and safety as the state encourages efforts to decarbonize the grid and scale deployment of clean energy generation and storage,” programs to transform our energy system are among the programs with the most drastic cuts in funding compared to last year’s budget. The 2023-24 budget proposes a reduction of $897 million in General Fund and an additional $370 million in General Fund in delays to future years.
One of the programs with the most drastic cuts in funding is for Low Income Residential Solar and Storage. The program will suffer a reduction of $270 million for solar and storage incentives in 2023-24, just as the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) has finalized a decision to cut rooftop solar benefits for future customers.
Another program to suffer reductions is the Equitable Building Decarbonization Program at the California Energy Commission, which not only includes a delay of $370 million in funds for this year, but also a reduction of $87 million for in the 2025 budget.
Extreme Heat and Community Resilience
In 2022, California experienced record-breaking heat waves that put a massive strain on our energy grid and resulted in deaths across the state. Despite knowledge of the fact that heat waves will continue to get worse as the climate crisis accelerates, funding for programs to address extreme heat and provide relief for communities suffered the most cuts in funding of any of the climate related programs, with a $735 million reduction across programs.
Programs affected include the Extreme Heat and Community Resilience Program with a $25 million reduction, which is a 43 percent reduction compared to last year as well as programs to develop community resilience centers, which suffered a delay of $85 million to 2024.
With a reduction or delay in funding to nearly every single climate program, some more than others, it does not seem as though the state government, which claims to be a leader in addressing climate change is prioritizing funding for programs but more importantly, not prioritizing the health and safety of the frontline communities who suffer the disproportionate impacts of climate change.
Hammond Climate Solutions Foundation has had the privilege of running its Solar Moonshot Program for three consecutive years now. To date, the Solar Moonshot Program has had a $1,000,000 budget per year, which has made solar and storage projects possible to over 100 nonprofit organizations across 27 states, deploying 5,458kW of solar and offsetting 136,049 metric tons of carbon dioxide. These projects are reducing emissions, offering solar education to the community, supporting green jobs and allowing nonprofits to save money on utility bills that are reinvested into their missions.
In 2022 alone we have supported over 20 solar projects across nine states. The solar and storage projects range from educational facilities, food pantries, affordable housing complexes, schools and more. Collectively, these projects are deploying 853.25kW of solar and offsetting 21,266.6 metric tons of carbon dioxide that otherwise would be accelerating the climate crisis. This is the equivalent to greenhouse gas emissions from 24,585 passenger vehicles per year and carbon dioxide emissions from 23,436,242 pounds of coal burned.
The following organizations have received grants this past year and are collectively helping combat the climate crisis:
We are extremely thankful for the generous support of Left Coast Fund, BQuest Foundation and an anonymous donor who have funded these grants and share our passion of combating the climate crisis and prioritizing communities of concern. The Solar Moonshot Program would not be where it is today without their support.
We are happy to announce funding for the 2023 Solar Moonshot Program! If you are part of a nonprofit organization that is interested in applying for a Solar Moonshot Program grant, please find the application here: www.solarmoonshot.org. We encourage you to follow us on social media (Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter) to check out our weekly #SolarSaturday posts that highlight grant recipients, the nonprofits’ inspiring missions as well as how solar positively benefits communities and the globe.
If you know of a foundation, philanthropist or company interested in supporting the Solar Moonshot Program, further expanding our impact, please reach out to maya@hammondclimatesolutions.com.
As 2022 comes to a close, we wanted to reflect on all we have accomplished this year as well as share what we have in store for 2023. From fighting for the equitable and sustainable expansion of the rooftop solar industry to successfully advocating for comprehensive and legally-binding climate action plans to managing clean energy initiatives, this year has been packed with local, statewide and national climate action alongside many amazing partners. Thank you for supporting our work!
Hammond Climate Solutions’ 2022 highlights:
We publicly changed our operations from a social enterprise to Hammond Climate Solutions Foundation, a registered 501(c)(3), which is allowing us to broaden our impact!
Our climate policy efforts helped:
Push for a solar-friendly net metering agreement
Provide feedback for the City of San Diego’s Climate Action Plan update and the County of San Diego’s Regional Decarbonization Framework
Launch the Fossil Fuel Free Pledge!
Provide input for San Diego County’s District 3 Environmental Roundtable
The programs and projects we manage continued to make a positive impact in communities across the country:
We helped over 20 nonprofit organizations go solar this year through our Solar Moonshot Program and passed the $1,000,000 per year fundraising goal
We managed $8,387,418.01 in recoverable grants, which helped nonprofits nationwide afford the switch to clean energy and energy storage
We continued managing two e-bike pilot programs and assisted our client BQuest Foundation in supporting an e-bike program for De Anza College in Cupertino, California
We oversaw the installations of an EV charging station at a San Diego-based nonprofits serving communities of concern with two more underway
Four more California Electric Vehicle Incentive Project (CALeVIP) rebates that we had applied for were given the green light to proceed, totalling $52,000
In Q1, we accepted two awards - the first was the San Diego Green Building Council’s Sustainable Organization award, and the second was for our founder and executive director, Tara Hammond, who was one of the San Diego State University Alumni’s Rising Aztec winners
Our team proudly served in leadership roles on a number of boards and committees including:
California Alliance for Community Energy (Steering Committee)
GRID Alternatives (San Diego Board of Directors)
SanDiego350 (SouthBay Eco Justice team)
San Diego Green New Deal Alliance (Steering Committee)
San Diego Community Power (Community Advisory Committee and Executive Ad Hoc Committee)
Climate Defenders Action Fund (Board of Directors)
San Diego Climate Hub (Hub Manager)
As 2022 comes to a close, we wanted to reflect on all we have accomplished this year as well as share what we have in store for 2023. From fighting for the equitable and sustainable expansion of the rooftop solar industry to successfully advocating for comprehensive and legally-binding climate action plans to managing clean energy initiatives, this year has been packed with local, statewide and national climate action alongside many amazing partners. Thank you for supporting our work!
Net Energy Metering
After a two and a half year battle, the California Public Utilities Commission made a final decision on the future of rooftop solar and approved a new net energy metering tariff. Unfortunately, the decision benefits the investor-owned utilities and will slow California’s advancement towards 100 percent clean energy, using fossil fuels for a longer duration, which accelerates the climate crisis and worsens climate injustices. The tariff makes drastic cuts to the credits customers receive for sharing excess energy with neighbors and makes solar more expensive for everyone, including low-income Californians who are currently paying a disproportionate amount of income towards skyrocketing energy costs.
Although we are outraged that the commission has sided with the investor-owned utilities and has disregarded the thousands of letters and public comments from climate organizations, nonprofits, schools, cities, elected officials and climate justice organizations urging them to keep rooftop solar growing, we want to take a step back celebrate what our coalition was able to accomplish throughout the course of the proceeding.
In mid-2020 we were asked by the Solar Rights Alliance to gather San Diego climate leaders to help build a statewide coalition, which became the Save CA Solar coalition, and we are so proud of the coalition’s work. San Diego was a leader in addressing this issue with the most public comments in opposition coming directly from San Diegans. This is undoubtedly due to the amount of work local organizations poured into organizing public comments, giving presentations, meetings with elected officials, organizing rallies and speaking with the media (read more about one of our successful solar rallies here). Although this decision is far from a win, we were able to:
Stop the solar tax
Prevent changes to existing customers
Defeat Assembly Bill 1139, the “anti-solar bill”
Build a diverse statewide coalition of over 600
For now, we will celebrate what we were able to change but this decision serves as a reminder that there is still a lot of work to do to dismantle the fossil fuel industry's influence on politics and to achieve true energy and climate justice. For more background on this topic, check out www.HelpCleanEnergy.org.
Local Policy Highlights
While our team fought endlessly for good policy change at the statewide level, we also helped effectively bring some big changes at our local level in 2022. The City of San Diego passed a comprehensive Climate Action Plan update, which included bold targets for the region to meet in the coming years. More importantly, it came with a promise of an implementation plan and funding plan to be released in early 2023, something the last Climate Action Plan was lacking and resulted in little to no progress on the plan.
At the San Diego County level we helped provide important feedback for the Regional Decarbonization Framework. While the final plan has not been approved, local climate organizations are committed to ensuring this framework is not only comprehensive but provides a path for implementation and includes how we will transition workers from our current gas infrastructure as we decarbonize. We were also invited and participated in the San Diego County District 3 Environmental Roundtable strategy meetings.
Finally, our team was proud to serve as technical stakeholders to help with the development of a number of local programs and climate boards, most notably, the development of the City of San Diego’s new Climate Advisory Boards, which will advise the city on numerous issues ranging from energy and land conservation to building electrification and stormwater issues.
Fossil Fuel Free Pledge
The Fossil Fuel Free Pledge, which was launched by SanDiego350, Surfrider San Diego, BikeSD, San Diego Coastkeeper and Hammond Climate Solutions Foundation, disrupts the fossil fuel industry’s anti-climate agenda by celebrating and providing transparency regarding where nonprofit organizations, elected officials and candidates receive funding. Those who take the pledge commit to not accepting money from fossil fuel companies, demonstrating dedication and seriousness to combatting the climate crisis, dismantling the local fossil fuel industry’s influence and prioritizing a healthy, equitable, ethical, just transition and sustainable world.
Since the pledge’s soft launch during Earth month, there have been nearly 35 pledgees and we plan to expand the pledge categories in the coming months! To read more about the August launch event, click here, and to take the pledge, please fill out an application on the campaign website: www.fossilfuelfreepledge.org.
Solar Moonshot Program
Our Solar Moonshot Program continues to effectively make positive change by assisting nonprofit organizations across the country in adopting clean energy. To date, the Solar Moonshot Program has secured $3,150,000, which so far has assisted over 100 nonprofits, deploying 5,458kW of solar and offsetting 136,049 metric tons of carbon dioxide. These projects are reducing emissions, offering solar and energy storage education to the community, supporting green jobs and allowing nonprofits to save money on utility bills that are reinvested into their missions.
In recent months we have supported over 20 projects across nine states. The projects range from educational facilities to food pantries, affordable housing and more. Collectively, these projects equate to 853.25kW of solar power, have supported countless green jobs and will reduce the use of dirty energy contributing to climate racism and the climate crisis for decades to come.
There are always more solar projects to fund. If you know of a foundation, philanthropist or company interested in supporting the Solar Moonshot Program, further expanding our impact, please reach out to maya@hammondclimatesolutions.com.
New Electric Bike Program
We are excited to be taking part in our fourth electric bike (e-bike) program. This program, in partnership with De Anza College, Cupertino Rotary and BQuest Foundation, will benefit low-income students at De Anza College. The e-bike loaner program will allow students to get to and from the college more easily and provide them with a reliable form of transportation while simultaneously reducing their carbon footprint. The college will be launching this loaner program with 23 e-bikes and we look forward to seeing how the student body benefits as well as how many vehicle miles are offset by the e-bikes!
Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure
While there are many public funds available for electric vehicle charging infrastructure, the process of applying for them and ultimately securing them can be daunting and burdensome for nonprofit organizations with little resources.
We have helped the BQuest Foundation secure rebates from the California Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Program (CALeVIP), which when paired with the foundation's grants, brings EV charging stations to nonprofit organizations serving communities at zero cost to the nonprofit.
Our efforts this year have helped secure $42,000 in rebates for nonprofits serving communities of concern across the region and EV charging installations for three nonprofits have been installed or are close to being installed.
Looking Forward
In addition to continuing our climate advocacy and policy efforts, climate advising and existing climate programs like the Solar Moonshot Program and our e-bike programs, we plan to expand the Fossil Fuel Free Pledge to other focus areas as well. We’ll be sharing details on other programs for 2023 in the coming weeks, some of which will serve as pilot programs and proof of concept to lay the foundation for bigger programs for cities, community choice programs and legislation.
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