BIOMASS HUB

A budget review by the California Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO), a nonpartisan office which provides fiscal and policy information and advice to the Legislature, claims that Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is circumventing the law by seeking to have all providers of retail electricity get 33 percent of it from renewable sources.

California’s Capital blog reports that in its examination of the “Resources and Environmental Protection” part of the GOP governor’s spending plan for the fiscal year beginning July 1, the Legislative Analyst notes on Page 24 that Schwarzenegger is ordering electricity providers and the state Air Resources Board to boost electricity generated from renewable sources to 33 percent when current law calls for only a 20 percent mandate.

At issue are two executive orders that Schwarzenegger issued — one in November 2008 and the other in September 2009 — calling, respectively, for the 33 percent by 2020 target and ordering the Air Resources Board to adopt regulations imposing the 33 percent renewable target as part of AB 32.

But citing a legal opinion by the Legislative Counsel, the Legislative Analyst contends neither one nor two executive orders trumps a statute:

The Governor may not issue an executive order that has the effect of enacting, enlarging, or limiting legislation…In the context of the governor’s September 2009 executive order, we are advised that the (air board) may not adopt a renewable energy–related regulation that contravenes, changes, or replaces the statutory requirements of the current (renewables) law.

The current law, signed in 2006, requires 20 percent of electricity from privately owned utilities to come from renewable sources.  Publicly owned utilities are not required to meet the same standard.

More on Schwarzenegger circumventing the renewable energy standard law.

2010-11 Budget: Resources and Environmental Protection (PDF).