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If you're in Marin or San Francisco, you've got a wall of junkmail coming at you from PG&E.
Oh, beg pardon. You have a wall of junk coming at you from "The
Commonsense Coalition." This is a coalition of one, and that one is
PG&E.
In teeny tiny letters, in ever more pale ink, you may be able to find the line on those mailers that says something about PacificGas&Electric. Or maybe you left your magnifying glass at home and you can't find PG&E on there.
Regardless, these 100% PG&E mailers are everywhere, they're expensive as heck, and they're clearly meant to scare the pants off us. If we didn't have brains in our heads, it might be hard to know what to do about it.
First, know that this is a straight out disinformation campaign.
These mailers are packed with the same tired ol' threats PG&E's Joe
Nation has been trotting out in council meetings (rebutted, again and
again) since 2008. Some of them are the same threats (again, examined
and rejected) used by PG&E to generate fear and confusion around
San Joaquin's CCA in a devastating disinformation campaign down there.
As they've made clear to their shareholders, PG&E has one motive
behind everything they throw at this: STOP the CCAs. Halt the threat to earnings.
It's faux grassroots on a boardroom budget, with
just that one simple goal: shut the competition down. PG&E knows
Marin Clean Energy -- if it can just survive PG&E's onslaught --
will succeed, and compete. And then replicate. Why else would they go to these extraordinary measures and $35 million dollar budgets to stop it?
So, back to that trashmail. Maybe you're more sane, but I am officially UP TO HERE with this torrent of costly PG&E mailers flooding the homes and businesses of my community, telling us how scared to be and what to think.
Here is one Do Something I'm using to offset infuriation:
SEND PG&E'S TRASHMAIL SOMEWHERE CONSTRUCTIVE: The CPUC
1. Pull your PG&E/Commonsense mailers out of the recycling (or out of the bin at the post office--ours was clean & dry!)
2. Stick the mailers in a manila envelope or one of those priority packets at the post office, and address it (below)
3. Jot the short STICKY NOTE VERSION below on yes, a sticky note or notecard to enclose with your mailers
...Or copy & paste the longer LETTER VERSION below and print it as a cover letter to your PG&E mailers packet.
(Are you an email-only type? Try filing another complaint at www.cpuc.ca.gov
citing the PG&E's barrage of interference with the CCA in Marin in
violation of AB 117. You can paste copy from the letter below, and you
don't need an account number. But mailing a packet would be more grand.)
4. If by post, mail to--
Commissioner Nancy Evans
CA Public Utilities Commission
505 Van Ness Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94102
STICKY NOTE VERSION:
Dear Commissioner Evans,
Congratulations
and welcome to the CPUC! Please take the right first steps toward an
honorable legacy. We urgently need expedited action on the CCSF
"Petition to Modify" Rulemaking 03-10-003. PG&E's saturation
attacks (see enclosed) on Marin County's CCA are in blatant violation
of state law AB 117. Isn't this the job of the CPUC? Thank you,
COPY & PASTE LETTER VERSION:
Commissioner Nancy Ryan
CA Public Utilities Commission
505 Van Ness Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94102
RE: City & County Attorneys of San Francisco "Petition to Modify" Rulemaking 03-10-003 (Filed October 2, 2003)
Urging expedited action in consideration of heavy consumer confusion and the escalation of opt out interference by PG&E in Marin County
Dear Commissioner Evans,
Congratulations
on your successful appointment to the California Public Utilities
Commission. You heard about the troubles in Marin in your first minutes
"on the bench." The citizens and ratepayers who have worked years to
see the Marin Clean Energy CCA bring choice to our County through a
diligent and exhaustive participatory process are appalled, now, at the
level of aggressive interference by the incumbent utility against the
CCA. This interference, similar to the interference noted in the CCSF
Petition to Modify, is in clear violation of the intent of state law AB
117. AB 117 requires the utility to "cooperate fully" with the CCA, and
nothing about what we're experiencing daily in Marin looks like
"cooperation."
The enclosed mailers from
PG&E's deceptively presented front group, Commonsense Marin, are
just a sample of what PG&E has been mailing to the households and
businesses of Marin County. This level of marketing interference is
impossible for any public agency to answer, due to both financial and
legal constraints. To any eye, the intent of PG&E's unconstrained
materials is clear. It is to confuse and alarm consumers about Marin
Clean Energy.
Please note in particular the
cynical use of minute type and singularly pale ink to obscure the fact
that Pacific Gas & Electric is underwriting these communications.
Please
note as well the misleading blanket invitation to all customers to "opt
out," when only Phase 1 customers are in their opt out period and may
do so. The other remaining approximately 80% of users will have to opt
out again when the Phase II opt out period begins 13-16 months from
now. This unnecessary confusion hurts all parties, and should be
stopped.
Finally, with PG&E's Prop
16 ballot initiative pending June 8, 2010, any delay establishing an
expedited temporary injunctive relief process for CCAs is, in effect, a
decision. As stated in the CCSF Petition to Modify (pg27), "Irreparable
harm could result." Please act swiftly to protect and enforce the
intent of AB 117.
Thank you,
_______________________
So that's all for this email, big update on PG&E's $35M Prop 16 to follow.
Warmly, Megan & the MMOB
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After much hard work 