Public Demands Clean Energy, CPS Accountability, and Green Jobs
Thursday, December 3, 2009
4:30pm
CPS Headquarters (145 Navarro St.)
As the Mayor heads to Washington for the White House Forum on Jobs and Economic Growth and as the world prepares to negotiate on climate change in Copenhagen, Southwest Workers Union and working class families converge to demand green energy investment locally that will create jobs and protect our health. CPS ratepayers will gather outside CPS headquarters this Thursday to demand real transparency and accountability from San Antonio’s public utility and offer real solutions to the economic and environmental crisis. We demand that CPS be accountable not only to the Mayor and City Council, but to community members whose utility rates for the past two years have already subsidized the financial risks of the STP expansion evidenced in CPS’s recent deception over the costs of the project.
Instead of nuclear or natural gas, Southwest Workers’ Union continues to insist that San Antonio’s energy future be a green one. A new era of clean energy, made possible by clean funding and accountable governance, must replace older reliance on carbon-intensive and fossil-fuel based sources of power generation. Nuclear energy is a false solution to the urgent imperative to cut carbon emissions, and we demand real solutions that are anti-poverty as well as anti-pollution. For instance, San Antonio’s residential sector represents the greatest potential for energy savings through efficiency, and weatherization programs available for free to anyone under 200% of the federal poverty line would not only reduce the city’s carbon footprint, but at the same time lower ratepayer bills and create local green jobs.
Our demand for green jobs is a timely one, as Mayor Castro travels this week to Washington, D.C. to discuss the Green Jobs Leadership Council and Mision Verde as a panelist at the White House Forum on Jobs and Economic Growth. As part of the Energy Action Coalition, Southwest Workers’ Union will also be sending youth leaders to D.C. this week to meet with President Obama around the issue of climate justice, and to participate in an action around stimulus funding and job creation convened by the Center for Community Change. As the City holds neighborhood meetings in each district to solicit community input on how to spend stimulus funding, we are calling simultaneously on Castro and Obama to direct federal money toward initiatives that build environmental sustainability and economic justice on the local and national levels, and for this to be reflected in a more democratic, transparent CPS committed to these goals as well.
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Labels: city council, CPS, energy justice, nuclear power, nuestra voz
Local residents, organizations demand CPS rate-hike focus on conservation & green economic development
Thursday May 15th at 8:45am
Main Plaza
As City Council is set to approve today the proposed CPS rate-hike, Southwest Workers Union calls on elected officials to set forward an innovative and clean energy future for San Antonio. In face of rapid increasing costs of fuel and food, along with foreclosures and stagnant wages, a CPS rate increased will add an additional burden to working-class families.
“We are calling on City leaders to invest significant resources into improving the energy efficiency of homes. Weatherize programs will offset the cost of the rate hike for local families and create jobs for workers here in San Antonio and combat poverty,” explains Sandra Garcia of SWU. “For a similar program in Austin, every dollar in energy savings initiatives generates $4.40 in savings.” Last week City leaders announced that $40 million more from the rate hike would go towards efficiency. CPS’s rebate programs often run out of money, and $40 million is not enough.
Under public pressure over the dangers of nuclear energy, city leaders removed the $206 million commitment to nuclear from the rate hike. However, in a creative accounting move, that same money will come from CPS capital improvements fund. CPS continued pursuit of a multi-billion dollar open-ended commitment to nuclear will prevent San Antonio from investing significant resources into renewable power and efficiency programs.
A household in San Antonio uses more energy than any other major city in Texas or compared with other states in the Southwest. The 2004 KEMA report found that San Antonio could curb between 12,000-1,900 megawatts in 10 years through efficiency alone, and eliminate at least 36 percent of the energy use predicted for 2014. Pending federal legislation, the Green Jobs Act, would make $120 million a year available for green jobs training programs.
“It is time for real meaningful investments in the green economy by CPS, programs that will both create a healthy planet and train green collar workers poverty. Solar and wind are the wave of the future. San Antonio should be a leader in local solar power generation and open the doors for new economic development opportunities,” said Diana Lopez.
Labels: city council, energy justice, nuclear power
