CA guv wins EPA award, but what's next for clean energy?

The Governator may be going the way of the "Expendables," but down the road he's likely to be remembered for his progressive clean energy policies.

From my perch on the nonprofit San Joaquin Valley Clean Energy Organization porch, his efforts, highlighted by his move to create California's Global Warming Solutions Act, requiring the state to develop regulations that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, look pretty remarkable.

We call the governor's measure AB 32. While controversial, many in industry have accepted its consequences. Utilities are increasing their purchase of green-sourced power, and solar and wind farms are getting the green light with increasing rapidity.

Thursday, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger received a huge slap on the back from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency when the agency gave him its Climate Change Champion Award.

Jared Blumenfeld, EPA’s Regional Administrator for the Pacific Southwest, lauded Schwarzenegger, for his "extraordinary vision and leadership as an early, ardent and articulate champion in the defense of our planet against global climate change."

The governor's progressive vision is matched by many -- from the ranks of bureaucracy to homes and businesses on Main Street. The desire to pay less every month for electricity or breathe cleaner air is not really a partisan issue. Perspectives may be flavored by blue or red leanings, but the average family tends to maintain common ground on quality of life and what leaves the bank account.

Blumenfeld acknowledged that. "The environment does not know political boundaries. It was created in a presidency of the Republican Party. And we need to encourage that bipartisan support." (Forty years ago by President Richard M. Nixon, by the way. I still have my "Nixon Now More Than Ever" button.)

Blumenthal did say that comes with "huge political risk," but underlined the importance of forging political common ground to solve the increasingly complex and costly environmental issues associated with our current love affair with fossil fuels.

I'm as much of the problem as anyone. I enjoy a comfortable temperature in my office and at home and drive a car, but then I live in California which has a one-person, one-car requirement. I love the gasoline engine. There's nothing like the sound of my 1974 Superbeetle wasting some kid's tuner.

Schwarzenegger took up the challenge of encouraging clean energy when many leaders let the issue slip down their list of priorities. Arguably, it's a sure-fire winner with jobs, reduced reliance on smog-creating technologies and energy Independence as just some of the incentives.

But change is not easy. Corporations rely on energy delivery systems based on refined oil. It's cheap, it works and it's still available, despite resources everyone knows to be finite. And fracking for natural gas has unearthed massive potential domestic reserves. (An aside: I tend to believe natural gas to be a clean fuel, but then I'm from Alaska.)

Future leaders will have to take up the cause. Consumers also can do their parts by embracing the recent wave of energy efficiency products on store shelves and realizing that smart meters can be used for good, not evil.

In his speech accepting the EPA award, Schwarzenegger talked about blanketing the many warehouses in the state with solar panels, being annoyed with China about bragging about its wind-power efforts and California's clean-tech accomplishments.

On the subject of China, he won a round of applause when he said, "So now we broke ground on the biggest in the world and it's bigger, much bigger than theirs, so I'm very happy about that."

The governor said California has out-sized pull. "We are this little, tiny spot but the power of influence that we have is an equivalent of a whole continent," he said.

We should keep that in mind. Here at SJVCEO offices, we recently experienced an example of the increasing interest in energy efficiency. Co-workers Courtney Kalashian and Maureen Hoff were so successful with a program exchanging old incandescent Christmas lights for strings using light-emitting diodes, which use 70 percent less electricity, that people snapped them all up way faster than expected and keep calling for more.

How the movement to embrace energy efficiency and clean energy will unfold is anybody's guess. My compatriot and fellow ex-newsman Sanford Nax and I talk about this subject continually.

Our topics often concern the future of the industry at large and when it will reach mainstream. Some say it has the potential of an economic gold, or green, rush. Big opportunities. Big jobs.

Yeah, right. Where are they?

So while we ponder such topics, we'll think about people like the outgoing governor of this sunny state of California and wonder what's to come and who will head up the charge to wean this nation from the incredibly costly overseas crude.