The California Legislature ends this year’s session at the end of August. This week our action is writing our members of the legislature urging them to support four bills that will help lower energy costs for consumers.

Our action letter:

Dear Legislators,

We write to express our support for efforts during this legislative session to expand access to clean, reliable, and affordable energy in California.

We believe abundant clean energy is essential to a livable future. As our region endures another heat wave, the stakes of this work are not abstract. Extreme heat strains our electrical grid at the exact moment we need power most reliably to run air conditioning, refrigerate medicine and food, and keep vulnerable neighbors safe. California cannot meet these mounting demands or our climate goals with a grid and permitting system built for a different era, or with rates that keep climbing faster than families can keep up. We need more clean energy online faster, more tools for households and communities to generate and manage their own power, a smarter and more fully utilized grid, and accountability for utilities to deliver reliable service at a fair cost. We appreciate the Legislature’s continued work to advance all of these goals, and we hope this session will build on that progress.

We support the following measures to expand clean energy generation and hold investor-owned utilities accountable:

• SB 868 (Wiener) would exempt small, certified “plug-in solar” devices—portable panels that plug into a standard outlet—from utility interconnection requirements, making it easier and cheaper for those without access to rooftop solar to generate their own clean power and reduce strain on the grid.
• SB 222 (Wiener) would standardize and speed up local permitting for residential heat pump water heaters and HVAC systems by capping permit fees, requiring faster inspections, and prohibiting HOA rules that block households from swapping out fossil-fuel appliances for efficient, all-electric alternatives that keep homes cool during extreme heat.
• SB 913 (Becker) would direct state regulators to fully integrate aggregated distributed energy resources such as home batteries, smart thermostats, electric vehicles into California’s resource adequacy program, unlocking the grid capacity already sitting in millions of homes to help keep the lights and air conditioning on during periods of peak demand.
• SB 905 (Becker) would hold utilities accountable for keeping electricity costs down by tying a portion of executive compensation to controlling rate growth, establishing performance metrics for reliability and grid utilization, and requiring utilities to publish data on unused grid capacity so ratepayers get more out of the system already built before paying for costly new infrastructure.

We ask the Legislature to continue its work to build an energy system that is clean, abundant, affordable, and accountable to the people who depend on it.

Options to Take Action:

1. 1. Sign the action letters at the Action Table on Sunday.
   2. Download an action letter that you can sign and mail.
   3. Continue to boycott Magnum Ice Cream products. Download the Action Info Flyer for more information.

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For personal actions or information, here are some helpful resources:

Contact the White House at https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/ or leave a phone comment at 1-202-456-1111.

If you ever need to look up your member of the U.S. House of Representatives or your U.S. Senators check here: www.house.gov and www.senate.gov.

To find contact information for your California State Senator or California State Assemblymember check here: www.senate.ca.gov and www.assembly.ca.gov.