Sen. Juan Vargas (San Diego-40th) will have a resolution on the California Senate floor next week that is an attempt to stop Sempra Generation from tipping the renewable energy scales towards Mexico, and away from the Imperial County construction and renewable energy workers in his district. The Imperial Valley Jobs Preservation Resolution calls on Energy Secretary Steven Chu to reject Sempra's application for a permit that would allow the San Diego based company to build a cross-border transmission line from a Mexican wind energy facility to the Powerlink in San Diego.
The claims on rights to jobs partly depends on geography. The Energia Sierra Juarez wind energy site in Mexico owned by Sempra that can handle up to 1,250 megawatts is 70 miles east of San Diego, and just a few miles south of the border, in La Rumorosa, Baja California. Very near the southwest corner of Imperial County. A connection to the local energy supply system in San Diego, called a "gen-tie", will take a 2 mile line from the Mexican site to the border and a 1 mile line that connects to an East County Substation SDG&E plans on building near Jacumba.
An official Senate Energy Committee estimate on lost jobs that the project will produce in the U. S. totals 15,000. Imperial County, already holding near 27 percent in unemployment, would take 90 percent of the direct job losses.
Convinced a permit approval would be a serious mistake, after introducing the resolution on August 16, Vargas said, "I'm urging the federal government to invest in our local workforce." He supports plans to build up the renewable energy production in the Imperial Valley, a part of the Mohave and Colorado desert areas the State of California have as a top priority for renewable energy projects.
President Obama's policy against dependence on foreign energy sources, to Vargas, stands in clear opposition to the Sempra project. In May, 2010, Obama made an agreement with Mexican President Felipe Calderon to create a cross border electricity task force, continuing the U. S.'s work on advancing trade in renewable energies. A cross border wind energy connection in San Diego has not raised an alarm at the Energy Department.
But, an opening for Mexican workers to move in to take American jobs on building transmission lines has been judged inconsistent with good international relations in San Diego. Any motivation to use low cost Mexican labor and escape the more strict U. S. environmental laws rubs Vargas the wrong way.
At the bottom of the committee's resolution analysis, labor groups have added their names to support the resolution that Sen. Kevin DeLeon, a Los Angeles low wage workers advocate that was raised in Logan Heights in San Diego, helped pass the committee on a 6 to 2 vote on Thursday, August 25, and Sen. Tom Berryhill, a fourth generation farmer that represents San Joaquin County, tried to vote down in the committee. Two AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades Councils, the one in San Diego County and the one in Imperial County, support Vargas's effort to stop the jobs spoils from going to Mexican workers on the other side of the border.
The California Labor Federation also took their position against letting jobs decline during the harsh times of the recession. Vocal spokesman Art Pulaski, a supporter of Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom's jobs creation plan for the state, like Vargas, single handedly fights against the failures of the middle class that have happened when high wage jobs have left local job markets. The jobs that make comfortable living a lock are his main solution.
The Imperial Irrigation District board has voted to support the resolution.
If all the Sempra project pieces fit together, construction will start on Energia Sierra Juarez in 2012. CPUC has to give two approvals. One will go to SDG&E's mid-April agreement with Sempra to supply San Diego residents with 156 megawatts of wind energy from the Mexican producer. The Jacumba substation project needs the other pending approval before work can move ahead.
In the 12 months before the April agreement, the SDG&E utility company signed 12 agreements for generation of a total 1,000 megawatts in Southern California.
Secretary Chu will make the decision on the Sempra permit later this year. Next week In San Diego, attentions will be on the senators in Sacramento.
This is an On The Watch Take.
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