Jerry Brown: An Energy Gap, Not a Crisis
Jerry Brown, mayor of Oakland since January of 1999, was governor of California for two terms, from 1975-1983. He served as governor in the aftermath of the Arab oil embargo and during the oil crisis caused by the Iran-Iraq war in 1979. During his gubernatorial years, and then repeatedly as an unsuccessful candidate--once for the U.S. Senate and three times for the presidency--Brown was known as an innovator on energy policy. He opposed nuclear power and advocated for alternative sources such as solar, wind, biomass and geothermal energy. This week he took a break from city business to talk about what he insists is an energy “supply gap”--not a crisis.
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Question: Is the current energy crisis real?
Answer: While there is a short-term energy gap, there are plenty of sources of energy to support a very rich and complex civilization in California. The gap between what we need and what we have is 3% to 5%, and only during certain peak periods.
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Q: Who’s to blame for the problem?
A: Energy was certainly one of my highest priorities when I was governor. I spent a lot of time on it. After 1982, there was a recession; the rate of economic growth declined, and migration into the state slowed. Energy consumption slowed, too. So the push that I placed behind an enlightened energy policy was removed after I left office.
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Q: Are you placing responsibility for that on your successors?
A: They dropped the idea.
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Q: The hybrid form of energy deregulation passed in California in 1996 was touted as a model of bipartisanship. Why do you think people from such different perspectives--a legislature controlled by Democrats, a Republican governor, consumer and environmental groups--seemed to miss what was happening?
A: Because the energy markets were quiet. The only people really affected immediately were the utilities, and they saw it as something we needed. In Sacramento, there was a powerful group for it, and nobody powerful against it.
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Q: How do you grade Gov. Gray Davis’s response?
A: I can’t put myself in Gray’s shoes.
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Q: Why not? You were governor once.
A: Here’s an analogy, to the medfly crisis. When I first heard about the medfly, I said, “Well, it’s just a few flies, maybe they’ll go away. Maybe they won’t keep reproducing.” And the winter came, and they stopped reproducing. And then, somewhere around February or March, I learned about something called “spring emergence.” As the ground got warmer, the larvae turned into flies and more medflies started appearing. It got out of hand, and ultimately I had to order malathion spraying. It would have been better had I taken forceful action at the first notice of the medfly.
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Q: Are you saying that the governor missed opportunities to act early, in the same way?
A: There’s an analogy there. I didn’t want to spray because I knew the people in Santa Clara County didn’t want to have helicopters spraying malathion over their homes. It didn’t sound good. As governor, I wouldn’t have wanted to see rate increases either. But sometimes you have to take your medicine early. It’s less bitter than if you postpone it.
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Q: In your State of the City address this year, you predicted that Gov. Davis would either solve the problem or find someone to blame for it. Is that what’s happened? He pointed the finger at the power generators and said how shocked--really shocked--he was to discover that some of them live in Texas?
A: In politics, a key strategy of survival--if not success--is to always have somebody to blame. Without minimizing what the governor should have done, and what Pete Wilson should have avoided, and what the utilities should have done, you can still point to the president and his influence on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and its unlawful refusal to enforce federal law. The Federal Power Act clearly requires that the commission enforce a reasonable wholesale price. They’re using the ideology of the market, of laissez-faire capitalism, to obscure the fact that the federal government is violating the law.
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Q: For a moment, imagine you’re governor. The price of electricity has hit--as it did in early May--$560 per megawatt hour, 11 times higher than in 1999. What measures might you consider?
A: The fastest acceleration of approval for new power plants, plus the purchasing of energy conservation. I don’t see why the state can’t send people checks that can be cashed if they can display a monthly electric bill demonstrating dramatic reduction in the use of energy from the year before. This would cost billions. But, since the state is now in the business of spending tens of billions, I think they should throw more money toward conservation. It’s also a great time to embark upon alternative energy. Global warming is not going away. It is truly a crisis that should not be obscured by this painful economic moment. We need to put into place the maximum number of policies to encourage conservation, efficiency and alternative energy.
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Q: A few years before you were elected governor, then-President Richard M. Nixon launched Project Independence, designed to free the United States from dependence on foreign suppliers. Today, there’s an even greater reliance on foreign supplies. Why?
A: There’s just been a complete vacuum of leadership on the energy and environmental challenges the country faces. Let’s put some numbers on it. The average American generates 20 metric tons of carbon dioxide a year. The average person, among the 6.1 billion people in the world, generates closer to 2 tons. That is a grossly inequitable gap that has to be closed. It’s obvious that the rest of the world cannot come up to our standards, so we have to figure out how to dramatically reduce energy use and yet maintain our way of life. That’s going to require a lot of efficiency and a lot of creativity and a lot of investment. It’s not just building another gas power plant or another coal plant or another nuclear plant.
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Q: The last American president to talk in those terms was Jimmy Carter. He put solar panels on the roof of the White House, wore a sweater and asked Americans to lower their thermostats to 65 degrees. And he was ridiculed widely at the time. How much do you think politicians’ reluctance to speak of energy policy in these terms is shaped by President Carter’s political fate?
A: What happened to Jimmy Carter left a residue for American politicians.
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Q: In what way?
A: Growth is the American way of life, and to challenge it is to be un-American and therefore marginalized. And, by the way, I would agree that growth is important--but growth of a particular quality, consistent with other forms of life and with the laws of nature. The Bush plan does not take into account the true nature of the environmental challenge or the alternative conservation and energy technologies that are available.
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Q: The president says we need to build many new plants. Do we?
A: Well, new plants are needed because half the old plants need to be replaced. But as leaders of the world, we should also be leading the transition away from the fossil-fuel economy. Yes, it’ll take 50 years, but you’ve got to start somewhere.
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Q: Have your views changed about whether nuclear energy plays a role in a sustainable long-term energy policy?
A: I haven’t thought about it. I think California is going to be difficult for nuclear plants because of the risk of earthquakes. I doubt seriously that Bush could bring nuclear power back.
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Q: Do you think the kind of shift from fossil fuels that you advocate could actually spring from this energy crunch?
A: Not in my lifetime. It’ll take at least 50 years. But I’d like to see our political leaders embracing the path to a sustainable energy future.
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Q: So does this crisis reignite your ambition to make a difference on the state and national level?
A: What does that mean?
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Q: Here you are, as mayor, forced to nibble around the edges as the energy problem hits the state and the country hard. Don’t you have ambitions to address this problem at a higher level?
A: Put it this way: My interest hasn’t been dampened by this experience.
