Power, Deception, and the Fight for Solar Energy in Florida
A dark cloud has been looming over the rooftop solar industry in the Sunshine State recently. As Florida residents head to the polls on Election Day, they will vote on an amendment to their state constitution that, if passed, could significantly stifle the development of rooftop solar energy. Although deceptively written to look like a pro-solar amendment, the utility-backed bill would prevent residents with solar panels from selling their electricity to third parties, and give utility companies grounds to change local laws that incentivize solar energy over their more traditional modes of electricity generation. It would mean progress in reverse for anyone who supports the development of Florida’s solar industry.
The attitudes of Floridians towards the proliferation of solar energy have been steadily changing over the past twenty years. According to polls by the AP, the recent voting trend suggests that the vast majority of Florida residents are warming up to the idea. At the end of August, for example, voters approved a measure to abolish property taxes on solar equipment with 72 percent favorability. And it seems that their attitudes have been changing for good reason. A growing body of scientific research supports the notion that solar energy represents a renewable alternative to other forms of electricity generation (both from an environmental and economic standpoint), and this energy source is increasingly feasible to implement on a large scale. According to a study published in the Oxford Journal of Bioscience, rooftop solar thermal conversion systems not only drastically cut down on CO2 emissions, they also could be a key strategy to help mitigate the constraints of land availability as the U.S. population increases by 3.3 million people every year.
Florida joins other states such as California and Vermont, which have been assessing the costs and benefits of a statewide net metering system. This billing mechanism credits solar equipment owners for the excess electricity they add to the grid. As the price of solar panels continues to drop, net metering would make rooftop solar energy generation even more attractive to energy consumers. The Brookings Institute recently compiled the findings of state-sponsored studies in ten different states that examined distributed generation and net metering. The compiled studies suggest that “distributed solar offers net benefits to the entire electric grid through reduced capital investment costs, avoided energy costs, and reduced environmental compliance costs.” In other words, there is some empirical legitimacy to the attitudes of Florida residents towards further developments in solar.
The collectively positive attitudes of Floridians towards solar raises some important questions: how did the current anti-solar amendment come to the fore? What is it trying to do and how does it have any traction?
Like many ballot issues, the language of Amendment 1 (entitled Rights of Electricity Consumers Regarding Solar Energy Choice) is meant by its designers to sound fairly innocuous. But the implications of the bill are quite severe for consumers of solar. If passed it would accomplish three objectives on behalf of utility companies.
First, it would inscribe in the state constitution the right to own or lease solar panels for personal use. Although many Florida voters perceive this right to be a positive development that will further the development of solar, the ability to own or lease solar panels for personal use is already codified under Florida law. The right to own a specific piece of property not already prohibited under law would be a superfluous addition to any state constitution.
Second, the amendment would prohibit Floridians from selling their electricity to third parties, effectively preserving the total monopoly of investor-owned utilities by locking out small private competitors. Given the falling price of solar panels, households and small businesses are increasingly able to generate their own electricity. To the extent that they do so, they become competitors to utilities. Tiny competitors might not seem like a big problem to enormous utility companies, but a lot of them can do some serious damage. In a state like Florida, which retains the archaic “regulated monopoly” model, individual utility companies hold the exclusive right to generate power in their service areas. Making solar energy readily available to consumers would involve breaking the regulated monopoly utilities have over the energy industry in Florida, something they want badly to preserve.
Third, and most dubiously, the bill would enshrine “constitutional protection for any state or local law, ensuring that residents who do not produce solar energy can abstain from subsidizing its production.” This would allow utility companies to upend any state or local policy that empowers consumers to use local solar producers (the Florida residents themselves, in this case) over their more traditional modes of electricity generation. It is no secret that Florida’s largest utility companies, Duke Energy and Florida Power and Light Company, are backing the anti-solar amendment. They have committed more than $22 million to the political action group deceptively named “Consumers for Smart Solar” who drafted the bill.
There is a reason why Florida remains in the Dark Ages when it comes to energy production. The power companies in control of the regulated monopoly have historically wielded significant political influence in the state. In his book Southern Water, Southern Power, policy expert Chris Managiello provides an historical examination of the relationship between Southern waterways and power companies. He is well acquainted with the close-ties between the nation’s energy magnates and Southern politicians:
“The nation’s two largest utility holding companies have had a far-flung family of current and former employees who remain close to the region’s political structure. Duke Energy (the nation’s largest utility) and the Southern Company (and its subsidiaries) have done more than generate energy for residential, commercial, and industrial consumers. They have lobbied state capitols and the Capitol in Washington on a variety of issues –environmental legislation, climate change science, federal subsidies for clean energy– by spending millions of dollars every year on super-lobbyists.”
This relationship has been most obvious in Florida, which hasn’t changed the structure of its energy industry much since the days of Standard Oil. Earlier this year, Tim Dickinson wrote a rigorous piece of investigative journalism for Rolling Stone, digging into the campaign financing of Florida’s politicians and how they line up with the lobby against solar energy. What he found was not all that surprising; utilities are top political donors in Florida.
“Since 2004, the state’s four largest [investor-owned utilities] contributed at least $18 million to state politicians and political committees — a preponderance to Republicans, who now control state government. In addition, since 2007, the companies spent at least $12 million on lobbying, employing an average of one lobbyist for every two legislators in Tallahassee. ‘They’ve got a pretty good harness on the whole deal up there,” says [ex-governor Charlie] Crist.’”
But if the general attitude of Florida voters is so opposed to the interests of the utility companies, and the objectives of Amendment 1, why all the concern? Won’t Floridians just vote against the Amendment, knowing that it does not represent their own interests?
Deception has long been codified into environmental politics in the South and Amendment 1 is a continuation of that legacy. The main source of outrage over Amendment 1 has been the murky legal language that it employs to try and deceive voters into believing they are backing solar. Many Florida voters have supported the bill based on the ostensibly pro-solar wording of the first clause, which again, as we have addressed, does not advance the rights of solar energy consumers beyond those previously established in the law.
This bait-and-switch tactic has been a very intentional messaging strategy on the part of anti-solar interests. Sal Nuzzo, a vice president at the James Madison Institute, a conservative think tank based out of Tallahassee, outlined the strategy used by the state’s largest utilities to create and finance Amendment 1 at a conference in Nashville on Oct. 2. Nuzzo praised the amendment as an “incredibly savvy maneuver” that “would completely negate anything they [pro-solar interests] would try to do either legislatively or constitutionally down the road.” He offered a campaign recommendation to anti-solar interests: “As you guys look at policy in your state, or constitutional ballot initiatives in your state, remember this: Solar polls very well.” He continued,
“To the degree that we can use a little bit of political jiu-jitsu and take what they’re kind of pinning us on and use it to our benefit either in policy, in legislation or in constitutional referendums — if that’s the direction you want to take — use the language of promoting solar, and kind of, kind of put in these protections for consumers that choose not to install rooftop.”
Opponents of Amendment 1 sought to have it thrown off the Florida ballot, challenging the constitutionality of its deceptive language before the Florida Supreme Court. Although the Supreme Court affirmed the language of the amendment in a 3–4 split decision, it also concluded that the bill would enshrine rights into the constitution already available to energy consumers. In her dissenting opinion, Justice Barbara Pariente called the amendment “a wolf in sheep’s clothing,” as it would allow utility companies to raise rates on solar customers, and that it was “masquerading as a pro-solar initiative.”
As Florida voters go to the polls on Election Day, they are fighting for their right to self-determination as much as their right to utilize solar energy. A vote against Amendment 1 is also a vote to weaken the energy lobby, which after many years of domination, is losing its grasp over Southern politics.
