Local Business Leaders Launch Energy-Conservation Campaign

Bracing for a summer of blackouts and skyrocketing electricity bills, Ventura County business leaders have launched a campaign to conserve power while pressuring state and local officials to find a way out of the energy crisis.

Backed by county business and political leaders, campaign organizers say their goal is to offer ways of conserving power, remind manufacturers and residents the looming summer blackouts are no mirage and give the region a stronger voice in Sacramento and Washington.

The campaign will enlist the services of key movers behind the lobbying effort that helped keep the Point Mugu naval station open in 1995.

“This energy crisis is real and prices are going to increase,” said Bill Simmons, president of the Ventura County Economic Development Assn., the business group in charge of the campaign. “We want to seek substantive solutions, not political solutions. We’ve done this before. You have the politicians working with you.”

The campaign comes as Ventura County prepares for a summer of rolling blackouts and power bills that could rise by more than 50%.

Earlier in the week, blackouts affected areas from Thousand Oaks to Ventura. Edison officials said with the state scrambling every day for additional electricity, blackouts are sure to continue.

“It’s a very fluid situation and no one knows what the frequency of blackouts will be,” said Nancy Williams, a spokeswoman for Southern California Edison’s Ventura County office.

The blackouts this week were the first since March, affecting more than 100,000 commercial and residential customers across the state.

On Friday morning, several business owners and community leaders attended a news conference on the campaign in Ventura.

Simmons, who helped lead the effort to keep the Point Mugu base open, said over the next several months meetings will be held to answer consumers’ questions on changes in billing rates and offer updates on blackouts as the power crisis continues through the summer.

Conservation efforts will be pushed, he said. In the long term, the campaign will lobby for additional power plants and ways to give Ventura County a “sustainable supply of energy,” Simmons said. The county’s elected officials in Washington and Sacramento said any effort at the local level is a good sign.

But considering the power shortage has been rocking the state since late last year, Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said he was surprised an organized local effort had not formed earlier.

“I’m very encouraged,” Gallegly said of the local lobbying effort. “The thing that has concerned me is that we haven’t had a lot of public input on this yet. We will see it when the bills come in. . . . A lot of folks have read about this and heard about it but it hasn’t hit home. It’s about to hit home.”

Pushing energy conservation should be the short-term goal of the campaign, said Assemblywoman Hannah-Beth Jackson (D-Santa Barbara), a member of the organization’s advisory committee. The long-term goal, which others have said should include more power plants, is still unclear, Jackson said.

“Right now we need to try energy efficiency methods. It’s the only thing that can help us through the shortage,” Jackson said. “You can’t just build another power plant. It takes 18 months to build the plants and it’s very complex.”