The Green Energy and Good Jobs for Los Angeles Act

The goal of the Green Energy and Good Jobs for Los Angeles Act is threefold:

• Green energy that reduces our reliance on fossil fuels- the goal of the Act is to reduce the City’s reliance on nonrenewable carbon‐based resources by requiring the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power to produce an additional 400 megawatts per year of solar power by 2013.
• Good jobs for Los Angeles – Under the Act new jobs will be created, a training academy will be established, and the DWP will be required to do outreach to underserved communities when recruiting workers.
• Reduction of the load on Los Angeles’ aging power infrastructure Municipally‐owned solar power facilities will protect the welfare of the City’s residents by reducing the strain on the Department of Water and Power’s overloaded power distribution system.

In today’s economy, good-paying jobs in Los Angeles are getting harder and harder to come by. The Green Energy and Good Jobs for Los Angeles Act is an innovative solution to both our economic and our environmental challenges. By investing in solar technology, we can create a new economic base in the city and thousands of ‘green-collar’ jobs working men and women can raise a family with.

-Maria Elena Durazo, Secretary Treasurer, Los Angeles County Federation of Labor AFL-CIO

Why support the Green Energy and Good Jobs for Los Angeles Act?

• We cannot afford to wait any longer to develop cleaner, renewable energy sources. The Green Energy and Good Jobs for Los Angeles Act initiative is an important step forward toward ensuring that future generations will not have to depend on expensive and highly polluting forms of energy.
• The Green Energy and Good Jobs for Los Angeles Act will create hundreds of good, family-supporting jobs with good benefits in manufacturing, installing and maintaining solar energy facilities – jobs that might otherwise go elsewhere. The initiative establishes a jobs training and outreach academy, and will create jobs in under-served neighborhoods throughout the City.
• Pollution from burning coal for electricity has contributed to air pollution and smog that is responsible for thousands of cases of lung disease, asthma, and deaths in Los Angeles each year. The Green Energy and Good Jobs for Los Angeles Act will help us save lives by keeping our air clean.
• The Green Energy and Good Jobs for Los Angeles Act will protect our health and safety by reducing the strain from peak loads on our overloaded power distribution system. On hot days, solar power will allow DWP to reduce blackouts and brownouts and keep electricity flowing to homes, businesses, and hospitals.
• The Green Energy and Good Jobs for Los Angeles Act will save consumers money. Over time, solar will be much cheaper than alternatives like coal and will help reduce the need to construct expensive out of state transmission lines. Additionally, solar power will protect LA consumers from up-and-down spikes in energy prices.

This measure will not only produce green energy but good paying jobs for working angelenos with job training to ensure workers can learn the skills necessary for the new green economy.

-Marvin Kropke, Business Manager, IBEW Local 11.

Provisions of the Green Energy and Good Jobs for Los Angeles Act

The Green Energy and Good Jobs for Los Angeles Act has the following elements:

1. Under the Act, the Department will better be able to provide protection against blackouts and brownouts, insulate the City from erratic energy prices, reduce the need to build costly coal powered energy plants, and extend the life of its existing aging power assets.
2. The key provision of the Initiative requires the Department of Water and Power to oversee the installation of enough photovoltaic solar panels on commercial, industrial, and institutional buildings and property to produce 100 megawatts of additional energy per each year until 2013, for a total of 400 additional megawatts.
3. These solar panel installations are to be installed, owned, operated, and maintained by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.
4. Customer participation in the Program will be voluntary. Under the Act, because commercial customers no longer will need to purchase, install, and maintain solar power equipment. Program participants will immediately benefit by significantly reducing energy costs. Department customers will continue to be eligible for existing solar power incentive programs and subsidies.
5. The Act further establishes jobs programs and manufacturing which will provide an economic stimulus for the City. The Act benefits the local economy by providing incentives to local manufacturers of photovoltaic solar panel installations.
6. A jobs training and outreach academy will create jobs in underserved neighborhoods throughout the City. The Department is required to develop a program to recruit and train Los Angeles residents to provide services necessary to implement this plan, including primarily, the installation, operation, maintenance, and repair of solar power installations.
7. The Department is further required to develop outreach programs designed to recruit new workers from all parts of the City. The outreach program will have an emphasis on reaching the underserved and economically disadvantaged areas.
8. The Department is required to grant a bid preference to manufacturers of photovoltaic solar power panels and other equipment related to the installation of solar power panel installation units, to firms located with the City of Los Angeles.
9. The City Controller will be required to conduct an annual audit to verify that the all funds utilized to implement the Program have been properly collected and expended in accordance with applicable law.