Report

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Reducing Consumer Costs in California

Performance-Based Regulation for Investor-Owned Utilities

California faces an electricity affordability crisis, with rates soaring far beyond national averages and contributing to financial distress for many households. In order to build a cleaner, more reliable, and more affordable energy system, California policymakers should look to performance-based regulation. What is performance-based regulation? Performance-based regulation (PBR) describes a set of policy tools that … Read more

Categories Clean Energy Community Energy Resilience Energy Efficiency
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Water’s Edge Tax Haven and California’s Budget Shortfall

How Oil and Gas Majors Crafted a Tax Avoidance Policy Contributing to Ongoing Budget Woes

Oil tankers at the Port of Long Beach.

This report details how global oil majors like ExxonMobil, Chevron, and Shell orchestrated the creation of California’s Water’s Edge tax loophole — a policy that now costs California taxpayers billions annually. It offers a first-of-its-kind, historical look at how oil giants lobbied for and have benefited from the Water’s Edge tax election, shielding their profits … Read more

Categories Climate Justice Fossil Fuels
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Envisioning the California Grid for the Future

Clean, Affordable, Reliable, Resilient, Equitable, and Safe

This paper presents a pathway for reforms needed in California to achieve a future in which everyone has access to clean, affordable, and reliable electricity. The landscape in this new world is dotted with solar panels on every suitable rooftop, complemented by a resilient network of microgrids as well as mobile and stationary batteries that … Read more

Categories Clean Energy Community Energy Resilience Energy Efficiency Transportation
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Reforming California’s Cap and Trade Program Policy Brief

Analysis and Recommendations

Sacramento River. Photo via Canva.

Executive Summary and Key Recommendations The California Cap and Trade Program plays a pivotal role in the state’s efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. A review of the program ahead of the upcoming 2025 compliance period has opened a critical window of opportunity to address and correct the program’s recognized shortcomings. In this policy brief, … Read more

Categories Climate Targets
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Building Decarbonization Policy Brief

Financing a Climate-Safe Future: Low- and Moderate-Income Residential Building Decarbonization

Decarbonizing existing residential buildings is critical to meeting California’s climate goals. Buildings in California are responsible for almost 44 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per year, or 25 percent of the state’s climate pollution. Recent research shows that, to keep pace with the latest climate science and stay below 1.5 degrees Celsius of … Read more

Categories Clean Energy Energy Efficiency Fossil Fuels
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Hydrogen Policy Brief

Guidance for policymakers on the production, delivery, and applications of renewable energy-based electrolytic hydrogen

The IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report states that 100 percent renewable energy systems will likely need to include hydrogen. However, the hydrogen debate — based on efficiency costs, climate pollution, health and safety, and environmental impacts — is complex and has ebbed and flowed over the past several decades. The reality is that hydrogen is neither … Read more

Categories Clean Energy Fossil Fuels Transportation
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Carbon Capture and Storage Policy Brief

Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS)

Limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, as outlined in the Paris Agreement, requires both cutting emissions by at least 45 percent by 2030 and removing past carbon pollution from the atmosphere. The use of carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology is increasingly under discussion among policymakers as one of multiple potential tools for cutting carbon pollution. … Read more

Categories Carbon Sequestration Climate Justice Fossil Fuels Just Transition Public Health
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Setting an Ambitious Sequestration Goal for California’s Working Lands

Analysis and Recommendations for Net-Negative Emissions by 2030

Sheep grazing agriculture working lands sequestration

Every scenario in which we limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, as outlined in the Paris agreement, involves dramatically cutting emissions and removing carbon from the atmosphere. Rather than rely on unproven technologies like carbon capture and storage (CCS) that prolong fossil fuel reliance and pollution, California can look to its millions of acres of cropland, … Read more

Categories Carbon Sequestration Climate Targets Public Health
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Should California Support Forest-Sourced Bioenergy?

Considerations for Wildfire, Climate, and Environmental Justice

Bioenergy has become a contentious issue within the environmental community. In California, one of the most pressing issues is how to manage and dispose of biomass from sustainable forestry practices. The state plans to dramatically scale up its forest management activities as part of its wildfire mitigation plan. At present, most of the biomass emerging … Read more

Categories Climate Justice Fossil Fuels Public Health