By Luis Amezcua
The City of San Francisco has taken a bold stand against profiting from climate disruption, passing legislation on November 29th that prohibits the leasing of city-owned land for fossil fuel extraction. The unanimous decision by the Board of Supervisors is a win-win-win for the environment, for clean energy jobs, and for city residents.
The passage of the ‘Keep It In The Ground’ ordinance is more than just a symbolic move; Supervisor John Avalos introduced the legislation in response to the revelation that for decades, San Francisco has benefited from leasing 800 acres of city-owned land in Kern County—the heart of California’s oil and gas country—to Chevron for oil drilling. This arrangement is at odds with San Francisco's reputation as a leader in seeking solutions to lower our nation’s dependency on dirty, climate-destabilizing fossil fuels.
The ordinance takes effect in 2020, when Chevron’s 26-year lease with the city expires. The ordinance requires the City to develop a just transition plan for the properties to ensure responsible and constructive re-use of the land, and ensure that impacts on workers are avoided or minimized.
Now that San Francisco is getting out of the fossil fuel business, it's making the correct assessment and examining how to take advantage of California's famous 300 days of sunshine and generate alternative energy and green jobs through the installation of solar fields. According to a report from the City's budget analyst, this move isn’t only sensible for the environment—it also makes sense for the city's budget. Leasing the land to a solar provider is expected to produce more than twice as much revenue per acre than Chevron’s fossil fuel operations.
The decision to divest City resources from fossil fuel extraction and redirect them to solar comes at a time when the demand for renewable energy is booming—while the price of the technology and the cost to consumers falls sharply. In fact, since the implementation of the Individual Tax Credit (ITC) for solar in 2006, the cost to install solar energy has dropped by well over 70 percent.
In 2004, San Francisco was one of the first cities in the nation to make a commitment to transition to 100 percent renewable electricity. To achieve that goal by a target date of 2030, the City has invested in energy efficiency, broken down barriers to installing rooftop solar, and launched CleanPowerSF: a new local power utility in the “Community Choice” clean energy model. The ‘Keep It In The Ground’ ordinance has the potential to help San Francisco reach its renewable energy goal by providing power to its CleanPowerSF customers.
Just before the first reading on November 15th, Supervisor Avalos expressed the significance of this ordinance, saying: "With the pending Trump presidency, local leadership on climate change is more urgent and important than ever. San Francisco and other cities can help lead this country into the clean energy future we need." Indeed, San Francisco has long been a leader in the environmental movement. By once again demonstrating that aligning financial assets with environmental values makes economic sense, let’s hope more cities follow suit and divest capital from the fossil fuel industry, joining San Francisco in building a vibrant clean energy economy that benefits all of us: workers, communities and our environment.
Photo: Oil fields in Bakersfield, located in Kern County. Photo by James Ian L.A., courtesy Flickr Creative Commons.