Calendar

9896
Jun
25
Sat
Strike Debt Bay Area Meeting: Debt Resistance is NOT Futile! @ A Taste of Denmark
Jun 25 @ 12:00 pm – 1:30 pm
Strike Debt is building a debt resistance movement. We believe that most individual debt is illegitimate and unjust. Most of us fall into debt because we are increasingly deprived of the means to acquire the basic necessities of life: health care, education, and housing. Because we are forced to go into debt simply in order to live, we think it is right and moral to resist it.

Come get connected with SDBA’s projects!
  • organizing for public banking
  • advocating for Postal banking
  • helping out America’s only non-profit check-cashing organization and fighting against usurious for-profit pay-day lenders and their ilk
  • Tiny Homes for the homeless.
  • Working on debarring US Banks that have been convicted of felonies from municipal contract
  • student debt resistance
  • fighting modern day debtors’ prisons and exploitive ticketing and fining schemes
  • Presenting debt-related topics at forums and workshops
  • Bring your own debt-related project!

If you are new to Strike Debt and want to come early and meet one or two of us before the formal meeting starts, email us at strike.debt.bay.area@gmail.com .

 Also check out our website, our twitter feed, our radio segments and our Facebook page.
Strike Debt Bay Area is an offshoot of Occupy Oakland and Strike Debt, itself an offshoot of Occupy Wall Street.

Strike Debt – Principles of Solidarity

Strike Debt is building a debt resistance movement. We believe that most individual debt is illegitimate and unjust. Most of us fall into debt because we are increasingly deprived of the means to acquire the basic necessities of life: health care, education, and housing. Because we are forced to go into debt simply in order to live, we think it is right and moral to resist it.

We also oppose debt because it is an instrument of exploitation and political domination. Debt is used to discipline us, deepen existing inequalities, and reinforce racial, gendered, and other social hierarchies. Every Strike Debt action is designed to weaken the institutions that seek to divide us and benefit from our division. As an alternative to this predatory system, Strike Debt advocates a just and sustainable economy, based on mutual aid, common goods, and public affluence.

Strike Debt is committed to the principles and tactics of political autonomy, direct democracy, direct action, creative openness, a culture of solidarity, and commitment to anti-oppressive language and conduct. We struggle for a world without racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and all forms of oppression.

Strike Debt holds that we are all debtors, whether or not we have personal loan agreements. Through the manipulation of sovereign and municipal debt, the costs of speculator-driven crises are passed on to all of us. Though different kinds of debt can affect the same household, they are all interconnected, and so all household debtors have a common interest in resisting.

Strike Debt engages in public education about the debt-system to counteract the self-serving myth that finance is too complicated for laypersons to understand. In particular, it urges direct action as a way of stopping the damage caused by the creditor class and their enablers among elected government officials. Direct action empowers those who participate in challenging the debt-system.

Strike Debt holds that we owe the financial institutions nothing, whereas, to our friends, families and communities, we owe everything. In pursuing a long-term strategy for national organizing around this principle, we pledge international solidarity with the growing global movement against debt and austerity.

61064
A History of the Poor People’s Campaign in Real Time
Jun 25 @ 1:00 pm – 5:00 pm

May 14, May 21, May 28, June 4, June 11, June 18, June 25, 1-5pm

Using news photographs, memorabilia, reconstructed objects, documentary fragments, and original documents, contemporary artist Kate Haug re-tells the story of the 1968 Poor People’s Campaign, Martin Luther King, Jr.’s last monumental social protest prior to his assassination. The exhibition features images and objects culled from Haug’s extensive research in the archives of the Associated Press, the popular press, and eBay, which have not been seen together before, bringing to life the complex ambition of King’s vision.

King began organizing the Poor People’s Campaign (PPC) in 1967 to unify America’s poor across class rather than racial lines, believing that economic parity was key to African American equality within the United States. The PPC culminated with a 3,000 person shanty town named Resurrection City, constructed on the National Mall in Washington DC. Resurrection City drew people from all over the country, was the nineteen sixties version of the 1932 Bonus March and a predecessor to “Occupy”. The exhibition time frame for this show mirrors many of the actual dates of the campaign, tracing the Resurrection City’s opening day to its final destruction.

The PPC echoes aspects of current social movements such as Black Lives Matter, Fight for Fifteen, and Our Walmart. In San Francisco, a city with one the highest rates of income inequality in the United States, King’s work asks pointed questions about the contemporary social contract and the democratic promise of America.

News Today: A History of the Poor People’s Campaign in Real Time runs from April 9, 2016 to June 25, 2016.

Gallery Talks:
Sat May 14, 2pm:
Justin Gomer Ph.D., Lecturer, American Studies, UC Berkeley
A discussion of the images in News Today as they relate to the shifting political landscape in the years after 1968.

Sat May 21, 2pm:
E.C. Feiss, Ph.D. Student, Art History, UC Berkeley
The Politics of Display

60968
No Coal in Oakland Rally @ Oscar Grant Plaza
Jun 25 @ 1:00 pm – 3:00 pm

We need a massive demonstration so the Council clearly hears the voice of the people. Let them know we want NOTHING SHORT OF A BAN.

61005
United for Community Radio Garden Party Fundraiser @ Grassroots House
Jun 25 @ 3:00 pm – 6:00 pm

Meet UCR candidates for KPFA’s Local Station Board.

Kris Stewart, LaTasha Warmsley, Jeremy Miller, TM Scruggs, Marilla Arguelles, Tom Voorhees.

KPFA needs new people with new ideas and energy to bring more community news, public affairs,  cultural programming and new technology to the KPFA and the Pacifica network. United for Community Radio is seeking candidates to run on our free speech radio slate which represents individuals and organizations throughout KPFA’s signal range and beyond.  We particularly seek those with geographic, racial and cultural diversity to join in our campaign as candidates and campaigners.

2016 Platform

KPFA and Pacifica are irreplaceable, strategic and transformative resources for amplifying the voices of millions who are overlooked, marginalized or silenced by corporate media in the face of police militarization, racism and housing, health, water, economic educational and environmental depredation. We force a vital radio station and network by balancing often difficult news reports with programming that heals and facilitates human connections.

  • Insure Relevant Programming
  • Decreased pro-corporate perspective
  • Join the global media revolution
  • Support all staff
  • Responsible financials
  • Strengthen the Pacifica Network
61179
Talk by: USS Liberty Survivor Don Pageler @ Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists’ Hall
Jun 25 @ 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm

Don Pageler will give his first hand account of how the USS Liberty, a virtually unarmed American navy ship, was attacked by Israeli planes and torpedo boats on June 8, 1967. 34 American sailors were killed and 174 injured that day, a casualty rate of 70%. This is among the highest casualty rates ever inflicted upon a U.S. naval vessel. President Lyndon Johnson recalled the planes that responded to the distress call, saying he didn’t care if they all died, he did not want to embarrass an ally.

Hear about one of the biggest cover ups in American military history.

Sponsored by the BFUU Social Justice Cmte

For occasional email notices of peace/eco/social justice alerts and related events at BFUU, send any email to:
bfuusjev-subscribe [at] lists.riseup.net

61201
Rally For Housing @ One Fam Community Event Ctr
Jun 25 @ 8:00 pm – 11:00 pm

61202
Jun
26
Sun
Puerto Rico: The Fight Against Colonialism, Capitalism, and Imperialism @ Niebyl-Proctor Library
Jun 26 @ 10:30 am – 12:30 pm
Sunday Morning at the Marxist Library

We are inviting three Bay Area Puerto Rican activists to discuss the the history and current situation of the deepening crisis and the fight against colonialism, capitalism, and imperialism. Confirmed speakers include:

Katherine Adames Rodríguez is  a pro-independence socialist from Puerto Rico who moved to the Bay Area last year. She has been a member of the Organización Socialista Internacional, the Puerto Rico Network of Solidarity with Palestine, and the Committee Against Homophobia and Discrimination. As a militant teacher, she was very active in the Puerto Rico Federation of Teachers, whose organizing efforts she supported and with which she mobilized against the government’s attack on public education and its neoliberal policies.
Roberto Pastrana Pagés is a nonprofit worker and a member of SEIU Local 1021. In 2014, he moved from Puerto Rico, where he had been a member of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) organizations on the islands, such as Puerto Rico para Tod@s, and the Committee against Homophobia and Discrimination at the University of Puerto Rico. A militant pro-independence socialist, Roberto was part of the Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) and the Federación Universitaria Pro Independencia (FUPI). He was part of the push for LGBT rights and worked for visibility and solidarity within the working class.
Ricardo Ortiz is a past and former member of the Frente Socialista of Puerto Rico. He has been part of the student, worker, nd community struggles both in the island and participated in the 1990 general strike in Puerto Rico as well as other struggles. Currently he lives in the Bay Area and is active in social struggles for revolution.

Seating is limited, so plan to come early. We start promptly.
FREE – but hat will be passed for donations to NPML

About Sunday Morning at the Marxist Library
A weekly discussion series inspired by our respect for the work of Karl Marx and our belief that his work will remain as important for the class struggles of the future as they have been for the past.

For info or to subscribe to our weekly announcements,
Call Gene Ruyle at 510-332-3865 or email: cuyleruyle [at] mac.com
For our full schedule, go to icssmarx.org

61154
Join the Climate Mobilization @ Humanist Hall
Jun 26 @ 11:30 am – 4:30 pm

Join The Climate Mobilization for an afternoon of activism, entertainment, education, refreshment and fellowship. Become a first responder to the greatest public health emergency that humankind has ever faced.

Stop the lethal fossil fuel pollution now plaguing our communities. We demand a World War II scale peaceful mobilization to battle climate change and achieve full employment in transitioning to a renewable energy economy.

Learn how we can all join in peaceful combat on behalf of life.

PRESENTERS INCLUDE:

ANDRES SOTO (Communities for a Better Environment)
Reverend KEN CHAMBERS (Westside Baptist Church)
MICHAEL EISENSCHER (Labor Against War)
JUDY POPE (350 Bay Area)
The award-winning poet and activist singer TOM NEILSON will perform.

* Lunch and snacks will be served. Free to the public

 

61070
Open Circle ~ Families Fighting for Justice @ Omni Commons
Jun 26 @ 3:30 pm – 5:30 pm

59100
Occupy Oakland General Assembly @ Oscar Grant Plaza or basement of Omni basement if raining
Jun 26 @ 4:00 pm – 5:15 pm

The Occupy Oakland General Assembly meets every Sunday at 4 PM at Oscar Grant Plaza amphitheater at 14th Street & Broadway near the steps of City Hall. If it is raining (as in RAINING, not just misting) at 4:00 PM we meet in the basement of the Omni Collective, 4799 Shattuck Ave., Oakland.  On every last Sunday we meet a little earlier at 3 PM to have a community potluck to which all are welcome.

ooGAOO General Assembly has met on a continuous basis for over four years! Our General Assembly is a participatory gathering of Oakland community members and beyond, where everyone who shows up is treated equally . Our Assembly and the process we have collectively cultivated strives to reach agreement while building community.

At the GA committees, caucuses, and loosely associated groups whose representatives come voluntarily report on past and future actions, with discussion. We encourage everyone participating in the Occupy Oakland GA to be part of at least one associated group, but it is by no means a requirement. If you like, just come and hear all the organizing being done! Occupy Oakland encourages political activity that is decentralized and welcomes diverse voices and actions into the movement.

General Assembly Standard Agenda

  1. Welcome & Introductions
  2. Reports from Committees, Caucuses, & Independent Organizations
  3. Announcements
  4. (Optional) Discussion Topic

Occupy Oakland activities and contact info for some Bay Area Groups with past or present Occupy Oakland members.

Occupy Oakland Web Committee: (web@occupyoakland.org)
Strike Debt Bay Area : strikedebtbayarea.tumblr.com
Berkeley Post Office Defenders:http://berkeleypostofficedefenders.wordpress.com/
Alan Blueford Center 4 Justice:https://www.facebook.com/ABC4JUSTICE
Oakland Privacy Working Group:https://oaklandprivacy.wordpress.com
Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity: prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com/
Bay Area AntiRepression: antirepression@occupyoakland.org
Biblioteca Popular: http://tinyurl.com/mdlzshy
Interfaith Tent: www.facebook.com/InterfaithTent
Port Truckers Solidarity: oaklandporttruckers.wordpress.com
Bay Area Intifada: bayareaintifada.wordpress.com
Transport Workers Solidarity: www.transportworkers.org
Fresh Juice Party (aka Chalkupy) freshjuiceparty.com/chalkupy-gallery
Sudo Room: https://sudoroom.org
Omni Collective: https://omnicommons.org/
First They Came for the Homeless: https://www.facebook.com/pages/First-they-came-for-the-homeless/253882908111999
Sunflower Alliance: http://www.sunflower-alliance.org/
Bay Area Public School: http://thepublicschool.org/bay-area

San Francisco based groups:
Occupy Bay Area United: www.obau.org
Occupy Forum: (see OBAU above)
San Francisco Projection Department: http://tinyurl.com/kpvb3rv

 

58624
Community Democracy Project Meeting @ Omni Commons
Jun 26 @ 6:00 pm – 9:00 pm

The Community Democracy Project is your connection to direct democracy in Oakland! Convened out of Occupy Oakland in Fall 2011, we’re gathering steam on a campaign to bring the people back in touch with the city’s resources through participatory budgeting.

Picture this: Across Oakland, Neighborhood Assemblies are regularly
held in every community. People come together to tackle the important issues of their neighborhoods and of the city. At these assemblies, people don’t just have discussions–they learn from one another, from city staff, and they make fundamental decisions about how the city should run. They decide the city budget.

Democratic, community budgeting is a powerful step toward building strong communities, real democracy, and economic justice–and it’s being done all over the world.

The budget of the City Oakland totals more than $1 billion per year. Although part of the budget must be used for specific purposes, still over half of the budget–over $500 billion per year–consists of general purpose funds paid by the taxes, fees, and fines of the people of Oakland. The Mayor and the City Council decide the city budget, with minimal input from the community.

Working together, we will not only get a seat at the table–we will REBUILD the table itself. Participatory democracy is real democracy–join us to say: Local People, Local Resources, Local Power!

61156
Jazz Fundraiser for the Oakland Justice Coalition @ Geoffrey's Inner Circle
Jun 26 @ 6:00 pm – 9:00 pm

Support the Oakland Justice Coalition, have a great soul food buffer dinner, and listen to Jazz.

The Oakland Justice Coalition is a coalition of organizations and individuals that came together around common goals for the 2016 Oakland elections. Our aim is to build people power and advance radical change through the arena of electoral politics. It is time for us to unite around the causes we all believe in ­ stronger protections for workers and renters, an end to displacement and police violence, a public education system that serves all its students well ­ and act in solidarity together to advance a political agenda that serves the people of Oakland.

We’re building a people’s movement driven by the power of organizations with different goals coming together as one to support each other and build collective strength. We have anchored our 2016 work in three demands, all captured in ballot initiatives proposed by community-led grassroots organizations.

  • Strengthen rent control and other tenant protections to stabilize rent prices and stop displacement of Black, Brown and poor people from the community they helped to build; as proposed by the Oakland Tenants Union and Citywide Network
  • Create a police commission with the authority to fire the police chief and conduct independent investigations of incidents of police violence; as proposed by the Coalition for Police Accountability
  • Establish a $20 minimum wage by 2020 and fair scheduling regulations, and mandate enforcement for both; as proposed by the Oakland Livable Wage Assembly
61132
Jun
27
Mon
Jobs 4 Freedom Final Push @ Alameda County Bldg
Jun 27 @ 9:30 am – 12:00 pm
Join us for the final push to get the #Jobs4Freedom approved by the Alameda Board of Superviors at the next BOS meeting. We will be meeting at 9:30am for a press conference and then heading into the meeting to speak up and show support for the more than 1400 county jobs the #Jobs4Freedom re-reentry hiring program will bring to the area.

If you have not already done so, please sign our Change.org petiton:http://chn.ge/25GcwZU

\
The Jobs for Freedom Initiative provides needed solutions to the employment barriers formerly incarcerated residents face in our County.  The goal of the initiative is to develop a pipeline for a minimum of 1,400 members of the Alameda County formerly incarcerated residents and opportunity youth to obtain Alameda County jobs. The initiative utilizes a best-practice model to provide leadership development, reduction of employment barriers and court advocacy for participants that have continued contact with the criminal justice system.  Building from successful employment models like the Jobs Now! program in San Francisco and Project Search in Alameda County, the Jobs for Freedom Initiative will strengthen outcomes for our re-entry population. We want the Alameda Board of Supervisors to support the establishment and implementation of the Jobs for Freedom Initiative as proposed by the Justice Reinvestment Coalition of Alameda County.
Over the last 5 years, Alameda County’s criminal justice system has experienced a decreased average daily population of 1,400 bed days in Santa Rita and Glen Dyer jails per year. Legislative advances like AB109, SB 678 and Proposition 47 have provided the impetus for such changes, yet research shows that without gainful employment, formerly incarcerated people are likely to reenter the system.  People who have convictions or even arrests without conviction face enormous barriers to employment. Incarceration leads up to a 30% decline in employment post release.  90% of employers utilize criminal background checks resulting in a 50% decrease in hiring callbacks for those with arrests or convictions on their record.  Alameda County’s elevated formerly incarcerated population, 375,000 of a total population of 1.2 million necessitates County leadership in providing quality jobs with good wages and benefits to the formerly incarcerated.  Leadership from the County on providing good jobs to this population will lift up entire families and strengthen our community.
We urge you to take action at the Board of Supervisors meeting in June 2016 to support the implementation of the Jobs for Freedom program in FY2016-2017, in its full concept with the following components: 1. County Employment. Alameda County shall designate 1,400 permanent County jobs across classifications and county agencies for this Initiative to ensure that individual people’s skills and interests are matched by the diversity of job offerings. While the salaries and fringe benefits shall be subsidized through this Initiative for 12 months, the employing agency shall cover the ongoing costs after the first 12 months. 2. Leadership Development. All Initiative county employees will be offered leadership development and mentoring services from Job Coaches/Mentors, who may have been incarcerated themselves and are hired by community-based agency(s) to ensure culturally specific and community level support.  3. Court Advocacy.  Community based Court Advocates will assist people who are being held in Alameda County Jail pending resolution of their criminal case to attain Release on Own Recognizance (OR) in order to be placed into county employment, and those on Alameda County adult probation supervision to be terminated early from supervision. Court Advocates will also support Initiative county employees in attaining all criminal records related remedies. 4. Reform County Policies. During the first year of the Initiative, Alameda County shall assess and report on its implementation of its Fair Chance “Ban the Box” policy, and identify opportunities for expansion, including but not limited to, application to all private employers, and/or contracting preferences for employers hiring people with records.
61213
BAN Coal in Oakland – Special City Council Meeting
Jun 27 @ 4:00 pm – 9:00 pm

First vote on a Coal Ordinance.

Rally at 4:00 PM, Fill the Council Chambers at 4:30 PM.

Come to the special City Council meeting and speak out for a complete ban!

Will the Council vote to ban coal storage and export from Oakland? Or will they compromise and allow coal with some phony “mitigtions” that won’t protect Oakland from coal dust and won’t stop the global climate impact of the coal burned overseas?

 

 

61004
NO Homeless Sweeps in Oakland! @ Lobot Gallery
Jun 27 @ 6:00 pm – 7:30 pm

The Jack London Square Business Improvement District (JLID) is organizing through the Neighborhood Crime Prevention Council to clear Oakland homeless encampments. They are having a meeting specifically about the encampments with Oakland police on Tuesday, June 28th at 5pm at 333 Broadway. JLID is aggressively gentrifying Oakland and relies on the lack of public accountability to continue operating as the shady entity it is.

We will be meeting at Lobot Gallery on Monday, June 27th at 6pm to plan a community response and tell them that the ONLY acceptable way to move homeless encampments is to provide housing to homeless people!

If you can’t make the planning meeting, please do still turn up on Tuesday to show that there is public support for ending povert

61212
Justice for Kayla Moore Organizing Meeting @ Grassroots House
Jun 27 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

By ANDREA PRICHETT

So it has been more than three years since Kayla was killed by Berkeley police. And yes, I believe that she was killed by the police. Perhaps unintentionally, but with an arrogance that should be considered criminal nonetheless: they killed her. Six cops participated in the killing of Kayla Moore. This transgender, African American woman who weighed almost 350 pounds, found herself underneath about 1,200 pounds of agitated police. By the time they got off of her enough to realize that she wasn’t breathing, it had also become clear that none of them would put their mouths to hers to offer CPR and assisted breathing.

So now these cops are going to go on trial in October as part of a civil lawsuit. There is no telling how much of the treatment she received from BPD had to do with her race, her gender identity, her size or her disability. But we know that her life was devalued by those officers to the point where they stopped listening to her. One officer characterized the sound of her last words as “verbiage” that he had learned not to hear.

JOIN THE NEXT ORGANIZING MEETING

Next meeting is June 13, and the following on June 27

61060
Jun
28
Tue
Antioch March for Justice @ the corner Mahogany and Manzanita Way
Jun 28 @ 4:00 pm – 8:00 pm

IN THE PAST YEAR, THE ANTIOCH POLICE HAVE KILLED TWO PEOPLE IN THEIR CUSTODY… THIS IS INEXCUSABLE!!.. IT WAS ONE YEAR AGO ON JUNE 25th 2015 A STILL NAMELESS MAN WAS KILLED IN THE APARTMENTS AT THE END OF CLAUDIA CT. THE OFFICERS INVOLVED, OFFICERS BROGDON AND KIDD. AND MOST RECENTLY, ON FEBRUARY 5TH THIS YEAR, WENDELL CELESTINE, JR. WHO WAS APPARENTLY SLEEPING IN A CAR WAS CONFRONTED BY CORPORAL MORTIMER AND OFFICER MORAGA. AFTER WHAT THE OFFICERS CLAIM WAS A “VIOLENT STRUGGLE” WENDELL CELESTINE, JR. WAS DEAD. THESE ARE JUST 2 INCIDENTS, THERE ARE PLENTY MORE.

WELL WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO THE OFFICERS? HAVE THEY BEEN DISCIPLINED OR PUNISHED? OR WILL THEY RECEIVE PROMOTIONS AND AWARDS?
JOIN US FOR A MARCH AND RALLY PLUS A SPEAK OUT ON THE STEPS OF CITY HALL TUESDAY JUNE 28TH LET CITY OFFICIALS AND THE MAYOR KNOW THIS MUST STOP!

@ 4 pm We will gather at Contra Loma Estates Park then @ 5 pm we will head out on a march thru the neighborhood and on to the Antioch police station…

61152
NO Homeless Sweeps in Oakland!
Jun 28 @ 5:00 pm – 7:00 pm

The Jack London Square Business Improvement District (JLID) is organizing through the Neighborhood Crime Prevention Council to clear Oakland homeless encampments. They are having a meeting specifically about the encampments with Oakland police on Tuesday, June 28th at 5pm at 333 Broadway. JLID is aggressively gentrifying Oakland and relies on the lack of public accountability to continue operating as the shady entity it is.

We will be meeting at Lobot Gallery on Monday, June 27th at 6pm to plan a community response and tell them that the ONLY acceptable way to move homeless encampments is to provide housing to homeless people!

If you can’t make the planning meeting, please do still turn up on Tuesday to show that there is public support for ending poverty rather than criminalizing and brutalizing poor people.

61211
No Housing in Peoples Park! @ Berkeley Old City Hall
Jun 28 @ 5:30 pm – 7:00 pm

As part of the new economic development plan for Telegraph Avenue, aka the “Telegraph Public Realm Plan”, the economic development manager for the city of Berkeley (Michael Caplan) is recommending that Berkeley city council support new student housing in People’s Park.

Show up to the city council special session at 5:30PM (this is not the regular meeting which starts at 7PM) and speak during the public comment period. Show your support for keeping People’s Park as an open space.

2019 will be the 50th anniversary of People’s Park. In 2019, the public can demand that People’s Park be turned into a California State Park, as to be preserved in perpetuity. People’s Park could also be placed on the national historical register. Developers and UC Berkeley are well aware that there is mass support for People’s Park’s preservation, but they ignore public sentiment by continuing to place People’s Park under threat of development.

61191
Tell Regulators to Stop Subsidizing Dirty Energy @ Oakland City Hall, Third floor
Jun 28 @ 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm

cpuc logoCome to the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) Rate Design Forum and tell them our tax dollars should not subsidize natural gas, but support clean energy generation and storage.

This forum, one of eight held throughout the state, is intended to explain CPUC’s new structure of electricity rates. The agency says the new rates will more closely reflect costs and promote cleaner electricity. Some of the changes modify the Self-Generation Incentive Program, which is intended to provide subsidies for “distributed” (decentralized) electricity generation and storage projects that help reduce greenhouse gases. Electricity industry analysts at GTM Research report that the changes will be positive in “democratizing” the development of clean energy storage.

But there’s a catch. So far most of the subsidies have gone to a company that produces fuel cells by burning natural gas – a fossil fuel that emits greenhouse gases and harmful pollutants. And natural gas itself is mostly methane – a greenhouse gas 84 times as powerful as carbon dioxide.

The rate changes will help other companies share in the program, but will still subsidize the use of fossil fuel. The CPUC staff recommended ending subsidies for fuel cells produced with natural gas and biogas, so the subsidies could go to truly green energy production and storage. But policy makers ignored this recommendation.

Come tell regulators to stop subsidizing pollution and climate catastrophe!

61200