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PG&E move to bleed
solar won’t help poor
Re. “Rooftop solar program robs from the poor,” Page A6, Dec. 22:
Shame on you. Every time the wealthy want more money they say they are trying to help poor people.
If PG&E really wanted to help poor people, they could subsidize energy rates directly for them instead of trying to kill solar energy. Did the CPUC presentation address how private funding of solar panels has saved PG&E the capital costs of building new power plants to meet peak loading?
PG&E already has the CPUC working for them instead of regulating them; they don’t need the East Bay Times to work for them too.
John Skinner
Pinole
PG&E has reaped
benefits of rooftop solar
Re. “Rooftop solar program robs from the poor,” Page A6, Dec. 22:
Is it homeowners investing $25,000 to install solar panels or PG&E executives who are getting annual compensation of millions of dollars who are robbing from the poor?
Rooftop solar has saved the industry millions in capital investment. That means the electric utilities get increased power for no capital outlay, while the homeowners invest their own savings to provide power. And anyone who has experienced PG&E’s “True-Up Period” scam knows that homeowners get only pennies in return. Corporate investment capital is thus available to develop distribution networks or storage technology so that the potentially unlimited power provided by solar can be put to good use. What Industries can invest in new infrastructure with no capital outlay?
Instead of scheming how to squeeze more money out of customers, PG&E should be developing projects to utilize the free power being delivered to them (e.g. desalination, transit, transmission networks, storage).
Donald Smith
Richmond
Voter ID laws wouldn’t
have halted Big Lie
In a Letter to the Editor this week, Steve Benkly advocates for voter ID laws with the belief that this would “not let Donald Trump or others have the ability to even question the integrity of the vote.” (“Voter IDs would secure elections from doubters,” Page A6, Dec. 21)
Trump doesn’t let facts or laws get in the way of his claims. His own attorney general has said that the outcome of the election was fair, as did his elections chief. More than 60 judges ruled against voter fraud claims in court, many of them appointed by Trump. He is like a 5-year-old who says that the only reason he lost was that the other team cheated. Trump and his people are not interested in logic or reason or facts.
If we had voter ID laws for the 2020 election, and Trump lost, one wonders if Trump really would have shut up and accepted the results.
Kevin Allen
Brentwood
Halt conservative groups’
voter suppression efforts
The majority of Americans need to call out conservative think tank, the Heritage Foundation and its counterpart Heritage Action, for going around the country influencing conservative state legislators and governors to restrict voting rights against people of color under the guise of former President Trump’s Big Lie that the election was stolen from him.
We are seeing them doing this toward American Indians in both Arizona and Montana, Latinos in Texas and African Americans in Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.
I urge the majority of Americans to demand that both the Heritage Foundation and Heritage Action stop their voting suppression against people of color.
Billy Trice Jr.
Oakland
Source: www.mercurynews.com