HISTORY AND THE ENABLING LAWS
In the mid-1990s there was a general movement towards de-regulation of industries. In California this culminated in the 1996 passage of Assembly Bill 1890 (Public utilities: electrical restructuring.) which:
Shortcomings of the wholesale electric market rules established under the State's restructuring plan contributed to the increase in wholesale prices. Specifically, under the market rules, PG&E, SCE, and SDG&E were required to buy all of their power through the CalPX. They could not enter into forward long-term contracts for energy. When spot market wholesale prices increased because of power shortages and increasing generation costs, the utilities had no option but to purchase the high-priced power. Since the PUC also put a cap on the rates that they could charge their customers they ultimately lost so much money that they went into bankruptcy. December 15, 2000: The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) ordered remedies for California's wholesale power markets. The order, among other things, eliminated the mandatory requirement that the three IOUs sell and buy all of their power through the CalPX. The FERC also terminated the CalPX's wholesale rate schedule that enabled it to continue to operate. CalPX discontinued operating in January 2001 and the CaISO was given more control of power plant outages and spot price purchases and resales. (Reference: A history of this fiasco and the subsequent actions taken is available from this link to the Energy Information Administration, U. S. Department of Energy.
In a further attemp to dis-engage itself from this fiasco the legislature passed Assembly Bill 117 in December 2002, the enabling legislation for the creation of Community Aggregation Choice (CACs).
The principle features of this bill were to allow local communities to form local agencies to buy and sell electricity using the existing public utility transmission and distribution systems, power usage metering and billing systems.
Significant other factors that were included in this legislation are:
1. It also prescribed that users would be automatically converted to customers of the new CAC unless they Opt-Out
(given several opportunities to do so as the CAC starts up).
2. It mandated that all costs for any such new operations would be borne by the new organizations and that customers
remaining with their existing utility should not have any increased costs due to the departure of customers to
the new organization. Since PG&E had entered into long term contracts for the provision of electricity to
all customers, in order to avoid the spot power purchasing problem incurred earlier in the decade, this led them
to having a continuing cost for all power already purchased but no longer being used by departing customers. To
the extent that there is a loss between their committed power purchase price and their ability to resell the no
longer needed power, the CAPUC allows them to charge all departing customers a PCIA charge - in addition to their
separate energy charge.
This legislation is the basis for the creation of the new Marin Energy Authority.
In late 2006 the legislature passed Assembly Bill 32, the Global Warming bill, calling for several actions which would result in a more rapid shift to Renewable Power Sources. Significant to the calculation of achievement of the goals, the new law did not limit itself to the issue of global warming for it excluded the inclusion of large hydro-electric and nuclear power plants - both of which are low producers of CO2.
MEA has adopted similar exclusions in its calculations. PG&E also does so in its reports of progress as required by Assembly Bill 32, but separately includes their large hydro and nuclear in their independant publicity relative to the real contributors to Global Warming.
If you don't like the rules - do not blame MEA. The rules were all created by the legislature.