By Melissa Yu
On Wednesday, June 15th at 5:00 PM, the East Bay Community Energy (EBCE) Board of Directors is meeting to discuss a budget proposal to donate $15 million to the UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital. Join the Sierra Club and our East Bay Clean Power Alliance allies in rejecting this budget proposal.
While the hospital is a valued institution within our community, EBCE is a public agency whose stated purpose is to “reinvest the earnings back into the community to create local green energy jobs, local programs, and clean power projects.” $15 million to an already well-funded hospital to create the “East Bay Community Energy Asthma Program” might sound good, but ratepayer funds would have a greater impact as investments in equity programs and projects that would directly address root causes of asthma and prevention of triggers.
Projects that would be a better use of rate payer funds include microgrids, “islandable” solar technology that doesn’t go down in a power outage, renewable energy storage, building decarbonization, and electrification retrofits that reduce or eliminate methane gas exposure.
RSVP here to join us Wednesday to urge the Board to reject this costly proposal and instead refocus our funds and investments back to EBCE’s core goals of cleaner energy and local development.
Questions? Email the Chapter's Senior Energy Campaigns Representative Melissa Yu at melissa.yu@sierraclub.org.