October 1st 2008
Shining The Light On Solar Bias
I
n California, we have Proposition 7 on the ballot in November, which would require the state’s utilities to use 50% alternative energy by 2025, up from our already difficult to achieve goal of 20 percent by 2010.
Nearly all of the money given in support of Prop 7 has come from one man, Peter Sperling, who’s given $7.5 million of mostly Daddy’s Money (Daddy founded the University of Phoenix). Sperling is another of those tedious heirs with a cause. Quite an heir, actually, America’s 301st richest individual.
The SacBee story tells us nothing more than the University of Phoenix hook; Forbes (linked above) tells us a bit more:
Father, John: Cambridge-educated humanities professor at San Jose U. Left academia to start for-profit University of Phoenix 1970s. Became Apollo Group; public 1994. Today enrolls more than 300,000 students in more than 100 programs for associate, bachelor’s, master’s degrees online or in classroom. Peter serves as senior vice president. Company faced numerous lawsuits; allegedly violated Higher Education Act by paying its recruiters based on number of students they enrolled; fined $10 million. Securities fraud: estimated $270 million damage award against company for misleading investors recently overturned. (emphasis added)
Sperling, who is so very concerned about California’s carbon footprint, owns more than 30 homes, says Ballotpedia:
In November 2002, Sperling paid $32 million for a home in San Francisco (right) -the record price at that time for a San Francisco home. The home was later placed on the market for $65 million, after approximately $18 million was spent to improve it. As of 2007, no one had lived in the home. News reports indicate that Sperling owns more than 30 homes throughout the world.
Speaking of carbon footprints, what do you suppose the carbon footprints of these Peter Sperling enterprises might be?
Sperling is also the Chairman and a founder of Communication Services, Inc., a Phoenix, AZ-based full-service communication engineering and construction firm serving the U.S. Coast Guard, FBI, Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. commercial wireless industry. In addition, Sperling is Chairman of Ecliptic Enterprises, a Pasadena, CA-based provider of integrated space imaging and telemetry and payload deployment systems for NASA, JPL, the NRO and the commercial satellite industry, and he is also a principal in Daedalus Real Estate Advisors, a developer of commercial office and industrial property.
(OK, it’s not all Daddy’s money; that’s why I added the “mostly” above.)
Despite the dubiousness of Sperling’s efforts to force Californians to be more carbon-light than he is himself, SacBee appears to be as close to Sperling as Gwen Ifell is to Obama. Here’s how the article described opponents of the bill:
The state’s biggest utility companies, PG&E and Edison International, are opposing the measure and have donated more than $27.5 million to the cause. Sempra, an energy company, has contributed another $104,000.
You cannot live in California and not know that every major environmental group in the Golden State is vehemently opposed to Prop 7, including the California League of Conservation Voters, the Environmental Defense Fund, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Sierra Club California and Union of Concerned Scientists. Also opposed are solar manufacturers by the dozens. Their point:
An unprecedented and diverse coalition of solar, wind and renewable energy companies, consumer, taxpayer, senior, labor, small businesses, local governments and environmental organizations all oppose Proposition 7 on the November ballot. Prop. 7 was placed on the ballot by an Arizona billionaire with no expertise in renewable power issues. The measure purports to increase the percent of renewable power utilities must purchase. However, it is so poorly drafted that renewable energy and environmental experts warn Prop. 7 will not achieve its goals and, instead, will actually “slam the brakes” on renewable energy development in California, result in significant increases in our electric bills and could result in another energy crisis. Prop. 7.
By making the utilities the only stated opponents, the SacBee article will drive many to support Prop. 7. Is the SacBee guilty of incredibly shoddy or incredibly biased reporting? It’s got to be one or the other.
Posted in Alternative Energy, California, Energy Policy, Media bias | 8 Comments » | 
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Comments
October 3rd, 2008 at 10:07 am
What nonsense! Why no mention of the unethical financial relationship between the Big Utilities, SoCal Edison, PG&E, and Sepmra, and the political parties and environmental groups opposed to prop 7? Just see PG&E’s grant list on their website and you will see that the California Democratic and Republican parties, NRDC, League of Women Voters, California Taxpayers Assoc, San Jose Conservation Corps, California Alliance for Retired Americans, all receive annual donations from PG&E!
Instead of attacking Peter Sperling for being an heir, you should be congratulating him for his innovative investments in the environment, including Prop 7. In addition, why no mention of the millions of dollars that Sperling has invested in the environment in California such as the $5 million dollar investment to save the Ellwood Mesa Coast wetlands in Santa Barbara County. Stop faulting the man for being wealthy and take a better look at his record. Also keep in mind that he didn’t write prop 7, his position is financial support. Thank you.
October 22nd, 2008 at 7:44 am
Follow the money. Who stands to gain? Who stands to lose.
Take a look at who owns the newspapers who oppose this prop. Look at who gets their grants/donations from the companies opposing this prop. Now their opinions don’t hold so much weight anymore.
You ragged on this billionaire for donating so much money, but the electric companies are the ones who are opposing him with many times that amount. I won’t even quote numbers because they will be out of date by the time you read this.
You sound like a corporate shill for the Republican party with your uninformed comments. Cheat Seeking? Really? Who’s the cheat here?
November 13th, 2008 at 6:45 pm
As far as I can tell, I think prop 7 is a good start…whether one is doing so in a way to invest in or promote his own businesses. It’s a just another component of capitalism. Even though this post has nothing to do with alternative forms of energy and selfishness investments, I will mention my selfish, crazed, immature, and delusional rant opinion of Peter Sperling as well. I have never met or read much about Peter Sperling. I do believe he is one of the owners of m/y Reverie or at least was recently. M/Y Reverie is a Benetti and is 230ft in length. M/Y Reverie is a charter yacht based in both the Med and in the Carib depending on the season. I believe weekly charters start at 500 to 700 thousand.I am a yacht stewardess who once dayworked on m/y Reverie in June of 2006. I’ll basically give the skinny on what happened afterward: I found out that there were illicit comments that were made about me [sometimes in front of me while I was working on this yacht] by dayworkers and by full time crew members on m/y Reverie. I will post some of their names on this site for the purposes of slander and payback: deckies, Grant Kitely and Richard Kelly, dayworkers, Nick Grace, Eric Grace, and Phill Delgado or Caliendo, 2nd officer, Simon Bridgewood, and once a newly hired deckie by the name of Mateo to name a few. Apparently, these guys had made some bad references about me in so many words. I don’t know any of these guys personally and never had any issue with them in the past. I have been married and worked as a research professional for years. I have a MA in Arts, and yet I wounded up in a situation like this at the age of 33. I finally sent a grievance to Peter Sperling at both his Univ of Pheonix and CallWave businesses. Later on, I was basically told by someone from m/y Reverie that Peter Sperling did receive my grievance in 2007 and that my claims were “false” and made up. I have never received word or reaction from Peter Sperling about this matter.I will also mention that from what I understand, m/y Reverie is one of the many American owned megayachts that draws much of it’s income from American dollars via charter guests, etc. Like many American owned large yachts, m/y Reverie flies a British Caribbean or other foreign flag. And like many other American owned yachts, m/y Reverie has largely employed illegal aliens from English speaking countries outside the states while it’s been based in both the US and Europe in which ICE has always known about and ignored.I’ve made vids on my experience working with some of these folks from different countries [most are from the UK, SA, Australia, and NZ]. I began making vids after my first experience while in the Med. Unfortunately at the time, I did not know that I was gaining employment illegally as well. http://youtube.com/debisis. While, I’ve faced some amount of retaliation from recruiters and yachties after making vids like these and perhaps complaining about a yacht like m/y Reverie, I think it’s certainly better to try to convey the truth to some who may give a rat’s ass care than to say nothing at all. And even though, I don’t really agree with what seems to be an agenda against Peter Sperling in the article, I’m glad that I have the opportunity to display my agenda against him share my thoughts on him as well. Thanks.Many folks may deem this as spite, crazed, or payback. I call it a meager attempt at justice.
November 14th, 2008 at 9:03 am
I am not entirely caught up with my economic knowledge, but doesn’t a proposal such as this one hurt the capitalistic abilities of the state? By forcing alternative energy onto companies given a small time window to convert, and what happens if it isn’t possible to convert that much of an energy percentage into alternative energy? Politicians and others that support these sorts of proposals don’t seem to realize that scientists, those that actually understand the basis behind alternative fuels, have been working with developing new energy sources for many years. There are obvious reasons that we are still reliant on fossil fuels. Alternative methods are still very expensive and still not as easy to mass produce. Sure, I do not claim to be any kind of expert and with the election over this is moot anyway, I just thought I would throw my two cents in.
November 14th, 2008 at 10:36 am
SLK, you’re absolutely right and fortunately the voters of California saw through the idealistic but foolish pablum of the earlier commenters and agreed with you - by a 65/35 margin.
November 14th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
SLK, the short time frame was the key problem with this legislation. Otherwise, it was the right idea. While conservatives are always talking about the “socialism” of environmentalists, the reality is that environmental impacts are almost always economic externalities that require the force of the state to account for since they are not picked up by market forces. Economics 101 requires that the government address the market failure with a coerced payment (via fines, taxes, tradeable caps, etc.). This is not socialism but a required part of the capitalist system. The air pollution, greenhouse gases and political risks associated with fossil fuels in general and oil imported from the Middle East in particular can all be viewed as costs that are outside of the normal pricing mechanism of energy and thus must be “internalized” by the state. I was listening to Rush Limbaugh’s show this morning, and he, like many well-meaning conservatives, do not understand this…
November 15th, 2008 at 2:34 am
I embrace regulation because I see the good it does. I spend my career and my God-given gifts fighting over-regulation because i see the damage it does: extracting great cost and giving little gain in return.
This is where your argument fails, DG, because the State is political, not market-driven. The state’s incentive (besides clean are and clean water) is to grow, to get larger budgets, larger staffs, larger regulatory authority. In pursuit of this, it uses science to justify mission creep, expanding its control, thereby securing power and budget.
For example, I have a friend who has been the top environmental compliance officer for a very large SoCal land company. The old Spanish land grant owned by his company covers tens of thousands of acres. When my friend started his job some 30 years ago, water quality regulations only covered the tidal estuary on the property - a navigable water of the US. Over time, the reach of regulation increased, adn for a while it made sense. But now the same agency (Corps of Engineers) claims jurisdiction all the way up to tiny seasonal erosion ruts at the top of hills - ruts that carry water only a few times a year - and are most certainly not waters of the US by the old, established definition. All this happened without any congressional action - nothing in the Clean Water Act changed.
This “mission creep” destroys the economic viability of regulation as you laid it out. The economy is a fragile thing and a heavy government hand on one side of the equation will decrease productivity without a sufficient countering benefit to justify it. I think people sensed that Prop 7 was this sort of governmental over-reach, and rightfully feared it and rejected it.
November 15th, 2008 at 6:14 pm
dear website admin, i guess the strike through isn’t really up to par. I put several in the previous post, yet i don’t see any shown.now my half hearted attempt at being sarcastic in the previous post was a futile effort and just made the post seem nuttier. thanks a lot.