Salt River Pjt

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no merri

just popped 4 25 lobbyist --> pol? alec?

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an 4 26

Critics say Erika Kirk’s Turning Point USA (TPUSA) has gone toxic in red-state Arizona, possibly to the point of derailing races it sticks its nose in.

“Turning Point USA has been blamed by a senior Arizona Democrat after conservative‑backed candidates fell short in a closely watched election for control of the Salt River Project (SRP) board, which oversees the state’s largest public utility,” reports Newsweek.

The races involve the critical Salt River Project board, which makes decisions over access and pricing for resources, and it sets the economic structure of the state and some of its neighbors. But Newsweek reports Arizona House Democratic Leader Oscar De Los Santos saying the conservative activist group’s heavy involvement in the race mobilized opposition voters and gave his own party an unintended boost toward clean‑energy aligned candidates.

“TPUSA pumped an unprecedented amount of money into this election,” De Los Santos wrote on X. “Voters came out in droves against TPUSA. Turnout was more than 400 percent of 2024 turnout.”

Turning Point USA worked arm-in-arm with the brand of President Donald Trump, at least until TPUSA factions began opposing Trump’s invasion of Iran. But the two appear to still smell enough alike to make a vote against one a vote against both.

“Leadership elections for the Salt River Project are usually sleepy affairs, but this year’s races were unusually high-profile,” reported the Phoenix New Times. “That’s because Turning Point Action, the political arm of the Charlie Kirk-founded Turning Point USA, decided to flex its financial and organizational might in the battle to control the massive public utility, which serves 2 million customers throughout much of the East Valley. Turning Point spent gobs of money advertising for a pro-industry slate of candidates and even sent an army of employees and volunteers to harvest ballots — a legal practice in SRP elections — in hopes of fending off a progressive slate called the Clean Energy Team.”

“For all that effort, Turning Point’s toxic brand may have worked against it,” the Times said.

The Clean Energy Team flipped two seats on the 14-member district board, shifting control of the body to clean-energy-friendly board members more open to renewable energy investment and more skeptical of fossil fuels and data centers. But team also “gained several seats on the district’s 30-member advisory council,” said The Times. “In fact, in 13 head-to-head races for district leadership — including races for president and vice president — Clean Energy Team candidates won 11 of the matchups.”

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https://environmentamericacenter.org/reports/amc/blocking-sun-utilities-and-fossil-fuel-interests-are-undermining-american-solar-power

11/17

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Solar power is clean, affordable and popular with the American people. The amount of solar energy currently installed in the U.S. can power one in 14 American homes; that amount is expected to triple within the next five years.

The growth of American solar energy in the past decade has been the result of smart solar-friendly state policies like net metering and tax incentives for solar infrastructure, putting clean energy within financial reach of millions more Americans. The recent appointment of officials favored by electric utilities and fossil fuel interests to key positions within the Department of Energy and other federal agencies makes the preservation of strong solar policies in the states more important than ever.

In 2017, utilities continue to chip away at key state policies that put rooftop solar on the map in the United States, making it harder for Americans to invest in clean energy.

This report documents 20 fossil fuel-backed groups and electric utilities running some of the nation’s most aggressive campaigns to slow the growth of solar energy in 12 states, including eight attempts to reduce net metering benefits and seven attempts to create demand charges for customers with solar power. Citizens and policy-makers must be aware of the tools that utilities are using to undermine solar energy across America and redouble their commitment to strong policies that move the nation toward a clean energy future.

A national network of utility interest groups and fossil fuel-backed think tanks has provided the funding, model legislation and political cover to discourage the growth of rooftop solar power.

The Edison Electric Institute, the trade group that represents U.S. investor-owned electric utilities, launched the current wave of attacks on solar in 2012. Since then, EEI has worked with the American Legislative Exchange Council to create model legislation to repeal state renewable electricity standards and attack net metering.
The American Legislative Exchange Council also provides utility and fossil fuel interests with access to state legislators, and its anti-net metering policy resolution has inspired legislation in states like Washington and Utah.
TheKoch brothers have provided funding to the national fight against solar by funneling tens of millions of dollars through a network of opaque nonprofits. The Koch-funded campaign organization Americans for Prosperity (AFP) has carried out anti-solar organizing efforts.
The Consumer Energy Alliance (CEA) is a Houston-based front group for the utility and fossil fuel industry, representing companies like Florida Power and Light, ExxonMobil, Chevron and Shell Oil. CEA has spent resources and shipped representatives across the country to help utilities fight their battles in states like Florida, Indiana, Maine and Utah.
The state industry group Indiana Energy Association successfully lobbied on behalf of the state’s biggest electric utilities to end net metering, replacing it instead with a new solar policy that limits consumer compensation for generating rooftop power.

At thestate level,electric utilities have used the support provided by national anti-solar interests, as well as their own ample resources, to attack key solar energy policies.

In Florida, Florida Power and Light, Gulf Power Electric, Tampa Electric Company and Duke Energy, the largest utility in the U.S., spent millions of dollars funding the front group, Consumers for Smart Solar, which was the primary backer of a failed 2016 ballot initiative that would have restricted rooftop solar growth. In 2017, Florida Power and Light drafted language for a new bill to restrict solar growth in Florida.
Two major Arizona utilities – Arizona Public Service and Salt River Project – have successfully pushed for anti-rooftop solar policies. Arizona Public Service, the biggest utility in Arizona, has also been accused of improperly cultivating influence with the state commission that regulates utilities and funneling dark money into recent commissioner elections.
In Utah, Rocky Mountain Power tried once again to eliminate net metering and charge additional fees to its 20,000 customers that generate rooftop power. Public outcry from ratepayers and the solar industry forced Rocky Mountain Power to settle, grandfathering all current solar customers into net metering.
In Texas, El Paso Electric renewed its past attempt to create a separate, and more expensive, rate class for solar customers. In 2015, the utility spent $3.1 million on filing and negotiating fees, an amount ultimately charged to ratepayers, before dropping the proposal, only to pick it up again this year.
In 2015, Nevada Energy successfully campaigned the Nevada utilities commission to eliminate net metering, a move that effectively halted the growth of rooftop solar in its service territory for two years. After widespread public protest, state legislators effectively reinstated net metering in 2017.

As of mid-2017, there were at least 90 ongoing policy actions in U.S. states with the potential to affect the growth of rooftop generation, such as limits on net metering or new utility fees that make solar power less affordable.

State decision-makers should resist utility and fossil fuel industry influence, and reject policies such as

Elimination of, restrictions on, or unfair caps on net metering;
Discriminatory surcharges or tariffs for solar customers;
Utility rate designs that discourage solar adoption;
Unnecessary regulatory burdens on solar energy; and
Rollbacks of renewable electricity standards.

In addition, state leaders should embrace ambitious goals for solar energy and adopt policies that will help meet them, including:

Considering the benefits of distributed solar energy to the grid, to ratepayers and to society in any rate making or policy decisions about solar energy;
Implementing strong net metering and interconnection standards, which enable many customers to meet their own electricity needs with solar power;
Encouraging community shared solar projects and virtual net metering, which can expand solar access to more customers;
Enacting or expanding solar or distributed renewable carve-outs and renewable electricity standards;
Enabling financing mechanisms to allow for greater solar access to businesses and residents;
Allowing companies other than utilities to sell or lease solar to residents and businesses; and
Making smart investments to move toward a more intelligent electric grid that will enable distributed sources of energy such as solar power to play a larger role.

Policymakers should also uphold our country’s commitment to reduce carbon pollution. Solar power will play a major role in any strategy to reduce global warming pollution and the carbon footprint of the energy we generate and consume.

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Arizona Company Spent More Than $1M on Ads, PR for Solar Rate Hike

(The Republic)

Salt River Project spent about $1.7 million on advertising in three months as it tried to drum up support for a rate hike that included a controversial increase on solar fees.

Financial records and e-mails obtained from the utility show the company geared up last year for an intense debate with solar advocates, whom one SRP executive referred to as "the enemy" in an e-mail to public-relations consultants. The company says the phrase was used in jest.

Read original story

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The solar financier and installer chaired by Elon Musk, SolarCity, has filed a lawsuit in Arizona federal court claiming that the Arizona utility Salt River Project is using anti-competitive practices to maintain a monopoly around energy and solar power and unfairly block competition.

Last week the board of directors of Salt River Project approved a new monthly average $50 "demand charge" fee for solar customers that live in the utility's footprint.

Read original story

http://ecowatch.com/2015/02/13/solar-jobs-arizona-despite-big-utilities/

...

And the Arizona Solar Jobs Census released by The Solar Foundation yesterday shows that solar is providing jobs by the thousands in the state, with a total of nearly 9,20o including 600 created in the last year. That puts it third in the nation, behind California—by far the national leader with 54,700 jobs—and Massachusetts, with 9,400 jobs. Arizona solar employers believe the number could climb to more than 11,000 by the end of 2015.

...

“In 2013, APS led the assault to weaken Arizona’s net metering policies by proposing a new $50-$100 surcharge on rooftop solar installations in the state,” said the Sierra Club. “The proposed solar fee was opposed by a diverse coalition of organizations including conservative organizations, clean energy businesses, environmental advocates and many other groups.”

In addition, the state’s second largest utility company, the Salt River Project, is currently proposing a package of rate changes that could increase the utility bills of solar customers by about $50 per month. APS has also been advocating for a property tax on leased solar panels, which comprise about 85 percent of the state’s new solar installation and can make solar panels more affordable for the average homeowner.

“With the growth of leasing programs that allow building owners to acquire rooftop solar at little to no upfront cost and without ownership responsibilities, rooftop solar is booming and utilities’ lost revenues are becoming noticeable,” wrote GreenTechMedia.

The Solar Foundation’s report points to legislative and regulatory uncertainty as one of the things that could impede the growth of solar....

10 worst power plants

http://grist.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/worst-10-power-plants.png

luminant, duke, salt river, NRG 1stenergy

www.globalpossibilities.org/lets-fight-the-1-percent-of-power-plants/

The Salt River Project, or SRP, is the collective name used to refer to two separate entities: the Salt River Project Agricultural Improvement and Power District, a political subdivision of the state of Arizona, and the Salt River Valley Water Users' Association, a private company that is an electrical utility and water provider for the Phoenix metropolitan area. Operating under the umbrella name, SRP, it is one of the primary public utility companies in Arizona.

In 2010, Salt River Project had a net revenue of $371 million. Operating revenues were $2.7 billion.^[1] Because SRP is a private company, the compensation information for its President, David Rousseau, is unavailable to the public. The Arizona Republic reported in 2009 that he made $150,000 a year when he was vice president of the public entity, the Salt River Project Agricultural Improvement and Power District, while president John Williams Jr.-- an elected official, elected to the position by landowners in SRP's territory-- made $180,000 a year. Together, they "spent nearly $81,000 on travel, dinner receptions and other expenses."^[2]

Contents[hide]

Support for the American Legislative Exchange Council

SRP also is on the corporate ("Private Enterprise") board of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) as of 2011. Russell Smoldon, Manager of State Government Relations, is SRP's representative on ALEC's corporate board as of 2011.^[3]

ALEC is not a lobby; it is not a front group. It is much more powerful than that. Through ALEC, behind closed doors, corporations hand state legislators the changes to the law they desire that directly benefit their bottom line. Along with legislators, corporations have membership in ALEC. Corporations sit on all nine ALEC task forces and vote with legislators to approve “model” bills. They have their own corporate governing board which meets jointly with the legislative board. (ALEC says that corporations do not vote on the board.) They fund almost all of ALEC's operations. Participating legislators, overwhelmingly conservative Republicans, then bring those proposals home and introduce them in statehouses across the land as their own brilliant ideas and important public policy innovations—without disclosing that corporations crafted and voted on the bills. ALEC boasts that it has over 1,000 of these bills introduced by legislative members every year, with one in every five of them enacted into law. ALEC describes itself as a “unique,” “unparalleled” and “unmatched” organization. It might be right. It is as if a state legislature had been reconstituted, yet corporations had pushed the people out the door. Learn more at ALECexposed.org.

SRP is a long-time member and supporter of ALEC. According to the Phoenix New Times, "in 1997, SRP, mainly through Smoldon, spent $6,573 on state legislators, including $2,352 to send Republican lawmakers to the annual American Legislative Exchange Council meeting; $152 for a picnic for legislators and staff; and various sums on flowers and food for public officials (including Jim Bloom, assistant to the chairman of the Arizona Corporation Commission)."^[4]

History

Despite its support of proponents of less government like ALEC, SRP itself is a product of big government. The Boston Review reported in March/April 2011:

Federal dollars also help explain Arizona’s historic rise. How else to explain a housing oasis in the northern Sonoran desert? Remarking on this mystery, writer and environmental activist Edward Abbey wrote, "There is no lack of water here, unless you try to establish a city where no city should be."

Big Government made this desert miracle possible with two massive water diversion projects—- the Salt River Project and the Central Arizona Project (CAP).^[5]

Early settlers in Phoenix and nearby areas were forced to depend upon the flow of the Salt River to sustain agricultural activities. The river was prone to both floods and droughts and proved to be a less than reliable resource for the settlers. Failed plans to build a dam on the river in 1897, combined with a series of droughts, heightened the need for controlling the river.^[6]

With the passage of the National Reclamation Act of 1902, funding for reclamation projects with low-interest government loans paved the way for the creation of the Salt River Valley Water Users' Association the following year. Over 200,000 acres (800 km²) of private land belonging to the ranchers and farmers in the association were pledged for collateral and the association was officially incorporated February 7, 1903, becoming the first multipurpose project under the National Reclamation Act.^[7] Construction on the Roosevelt Dam would commence the following year.^[6]

Although the construction of dams was the association’s most visible and costly project, an integral part of the effort was also the construction and improvement of a system of canals designed to distribute the water from the Salt River among the various members living in the valley.^[6]

In 1909, a hydroelectric generator was installed at Roosevelt Dam; since then, SRP has also been a major player in the power generation business.^[6]

As of 2011, SRP owns or operates twelve electrical generating stations, eight hydroelectric plants, and has energy purchasing agreements with three major hydroelectric stations along the Colorado River, making it a major provider of electric service in the Phoenix area.^[8] Along with the six reservoirs along the Salt and Verde Rivers, SRP operates the Granite Reef Diversion Dam, the C.C. Cragin Dam and Reservoir on East Clear Creek and a number of canals, making the SRP a major provider of water to the Phoenix area.^[9]

Existing coal-fired power plants

SRP owned 5 coal-fired generating stations in 2005, with 3,231 MW of capacity. Here is a list of SRP's coal power plants:^[10][11]

Plant Name	State	County	Year(s) Built	Capacity	2007 CO₂ Emissions	2006 SO₂ Emissions
Navajo	AZ	Coconino	1974, 1975, 1976	2409 MW	19,900,000 tons	3,843 tons
Coronado	AZ	Apache	1979, 1980	822 MW	6,314,000 tons	13,515 tons

In 2006, SRP's 2 coal-fired power plants emitted 26.2 million tons of CO₂ and 17,000 tons of SO₂.

Salt River Project Agriculture Improvement and Power District Clean Air Act Settlement

On August, 12, 2008 the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. EPA announced that the owner of the Salt River Project in St. Johns, Arizona agreed to install pollution controls at the facility at an estimated cost of $400 million to reduce harmful pollutants. In addition the owner also paid a $950,000 civil penalty. The settlement resolved allegations that the Salt River Project violated New Source Review requirements of the Clean Air Act.^[12]

This settlement marks a significant step in controlling harmful nitrogen oxide emissions in the Western United States,” said Granta Nakayama, assistant administrator for EPA’s enforcement and compliance assurance program. “The installation of state-of-the-art technology sets an important benchmark for the control of this harmful pollutant. EPA is committed to ensuring coal-fired power plants comply with the Clean Air Act”.^[12]

The settlement mandates that the owner install and operate new pollution control equipment on both generating units at its Coronado Generating Station. These controls will reduce combined emissions of sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxides (NOx) by approximately 21,000 tons annually.^[12]

SRP will install flue gas desulfurization devices (scrubbers) to control SO2 at both units and selective catalytic reduction (SCR) controls to limit NOx at one of the units. The settlement was the first ever to secure an SCR retrofit of an existing coal-fired electric generating unit in the Western United States.^[12]

Navajo Plant Upgrades

Currently the Navajo Generating Station is debating whether or not to install scrubbers to help reduce sulfur dioxide (SO2), a pollutant discharged from the burning of coal which is regulated by the U.S. EPA and can contribute to acid rain. Costs could reach $600,000 million to $1 billion to install these scrubbers at the Navajo Station.^[13]

The EPA has proposed the scrubbing system which uses ammonia to reduce SO2. The Salt River Project, Navajo's managing partner, says this could add about $13 million a year to the plant's operating budget and those expanses would be passed on to customers. The ammonia must be injected into the system after the coal is burned. To reach the plant, the chemical would be delivered to Flagstaff by railroad and then trucked to Page, where the only service is a direct rail line from the Kayenta coal mine that produces coal for the plant.^[13]

"It would be a very significant capital investment and challenging to do the work," said Glenn Reeves, SRP's manager of power generation. "We would have issues just getting approval from all the owners. There are a lot of uncertainties around coal plants right now."^[13]

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power holds a 21 percent interest in Navajo and under California law, faces strict rules about putting money in coal-fired plants and is currently deciding whether or not to walk away from Navajo if the expenses and risk of a future closure are too high.^[13]

Citizen action

December 2011: Protesters Target Navajo Generating Station

On December 2, 2011 sixteen people were arrested at the Salt River Project (SRP) offices in Tempe, Arizona. The protesters demanded that SRP shut down the Navajo Generating Station. The protest was the third in three days, all targeting the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). ALEC is a policy research group that focuses on building private-public partnerships. SRP lobbyist Russell Smolden is Arizona’s private sector chair in ALEC.^[14]

Articles and Resources

References

↑ ^1.0 ^1.1 Salt River Project, Management's Financial and Operational Summary for 2010, corporate website, accessed July 9, 2011
↑ Ryan Randazzo, Spending by SRP leaders spurs concern, Arizona Republic, October 15, 2009
↑ American Legislative Exchange Council, Private Enterprise Board, organizational website, accessed July 8, 2011
↑ Patti Epler A peek at how the power companies played the political game in 1998, Phoenix New Times, January 7, 1999
↑ Tom Barry, Securing Arizona: What Americans Can Learn From Their Rogue State, Boston Review, March/April 2011
↑ ^6.0 ^6.1 ^6.2 ^6.3 Tom Kollenborn, Roosevelt Dam: A Part of our Changing Times, Apache Junction News, 1999
↑ Historical Timeline, SRP website.
↑ Salt River Project, SRP's generation sources, corporate website, accessed July 9, 2011
↑ Salt River Project, Dams and reservoirs managed by SRP, corporate website, accessed July 9, 2011
↑ Environmental Integrity Project, Dirty Kilowatts: America’s Most Polluting Power Plants, July 2007.
↑ Dig Deeper, Carbon Monitoring for Action database, accessed June 2008.
↑ ^12.0 ^12.1 ^12.2 ^12.3 U.S. EPA, First Settlement in Western U.S. Requiring State-of-the-Art Nitrogen Oxide Retrofit, settlement news release, August 12, 2008
↑ ^13.0 ^13.1 ^13.2 ^13.3 Shaun McKinnon, "Cleaning dirty air risks costlier Arizona water," Arizona Republic, November 1, 2009
↑ "Protesters Target Salt River Project's Coal-Fired Power Plant" Devin Browne, Fronteras, December 9, 2011.

External Articles