If you have been following the Bob Kittle editorial controversy on our Web site, you know that Mr. Kittle has made numerous factually deficient statements about UCAN's efforts to fight the construction of the Sunrise Powerlink. Mr. Kittle has attacked UCAN as a "lucrative rip-off" in a recent editorial, while gushing with support for the Sunrise Transmission Project.

Now, a former colleague of Kittle's, Don Bauder, who edited the Union-Tribune's business section for nearly 30 years has exposed Kittle as a "pathetically fatuous" toady for San Diego's power "overlords."

If you are a Union-Tribune subscriber, a UCAN member, or if you are concerned about the negative financial and environmental effects of the Sunrise PowerLink, you must read this article published July 31 in the San Diego Reader.

Here are just a few of the highlights:

"The campaign to ballyhoo the proposed Sunrise Powerlink has one beneficial effect: it is shining light on how San Diego’s overlords try to use misinformation to manipulate public opinion ..."

"... One of the groups battling Sunrise is Utility Consumers’ Action Network (UCAN), a 30,000-member organization that has fought every SDG&E rate-increase attempt since 1984, with many great successes. On Monday, July 14, the Union-Tribune wrote an editorial titled “Lucrative rip-off: SDG&E bills include interest-group costs.” The editorial was inaccurate and pathetically fatuous. The second sentence read, “But what few San Diego Gas & Electric customers know is that their monthly bills are higher because UCAN’s small staff has collected nearly $2 million from SDG&E ratepayers for intervening before the California Public Utilities Commission in opposition to SDG&E projects from 1989 to 2006 ... Think about that nonsense." ...

... The U-T’s editorial did not mention, of course, that on January 26, 2002, another editorial that appeared in the U-T lauded Shames as a “consumers’ hero.” UCAN had challenged a deal cooked up in a back room by Sempra and former governor Gray Davis. UCAN won and saved the ratepayers $363 million, later reduced to $197 million. Said the editorial about UCAN, “Good work, guys.” If the U-T’s statement that UCAN has cost ratepayers $2 million over 17 years were accurate — and it is not accurate — even the U-T might understand that $197 million is a very good return on a $2 million investment. It’s even better on the actual investment: zero.

The July 14 editorial was written by Bob Kittle, the U-T’s editorial page editor. Kittle got information for his piece from SDG&E, says Shames, quoting a phone conversation he had with Kittle.

In an email, I asked Kittle about that. He shot back, “In fact, I received no information from SDG&E.” He explained that the information provided to him was given by Sempra, SDG&E’s parent. Hmmm. This isn’t even hairsplitting. It’s rank deception. ..."

We couldn't have said it better. Again, we urge you to read Don Bauder's Spinrise.

Related articles:

Bob Kittle's hit piece targeting UCAN as a "lucrative rip-off."

Bob Kittle's opinion, lauding UCAN as a "Consumers' Hero" (Mr. Kittle denies running this opinion).

UCAN's rebuttal to Robert A. Kittle's attack. (Mr. Kittle has refused to publish this document).

Bob Kittle's refusal to print UCAN's rebuttal.

Law Professor Robert Fellmeth's letter to the Union, asserting that Kittle's editorial was flawed by "material omissions."

Factual misstatements made by Bob Kittle on KPBS Radio's Editor's Roundtable.

SDG&E's lust for removing trees is pornographic.

Guest Commentary by Jeanne Gahagan.

(Jeanne Gahagan is a San Diego resident and SDG&E victim)

SDGE is addicted to the promiscuous wanton destruction of palm trees that pose no interference whatsoever with overhead power lines - or anything else for that matter - other than perhaps a corporate syndrome of male inadequacy.

Men suffering from such a psychosis may consume Viagra and then find a complicit sex worker to draw off some of their accretions.  SD&GE wields its corporate penis by threatening property owners with lawsuits if they complain about SDGE whacking off (trees) for no discernable reason other than SDGE, like a 13 year old pubescent teen in the privacy of his room, can do it with impunity.

At the risk of frustrating the reader with an early withdrawal from the tease of sex, this is about corporate environmental malfeasance. SDGE owns easements along sidwalks in Mission Hills that allow it to remove things, such as trees, that interfere with
power lines. SDGE apparently believes that their easement also allows them to remove trees that are remote from the nearest power line and needs no further reason for removal apart from some weird sort of fetish in felling something long, hard, and upright. In  fact, SDGE is actively continuing such removal right now. By "remove" I mean "whack off at the base", not "dig up for replanting",  something that is easily and frequently done in the case of this particular victim tree, the palm.

Calling the removal of trees with a root system too shallow to annoy gophers and a top too small to stretch to the nearest overhead power line "stupid" is an unneccessary offense against stupidity. It is a waste of effort, resulting in no discernable reduction in
the arboreal risk to SDGE's power lines. It is a waste of money. It is a waste of trees. You know, those big things that soak up
CO2. So where are the global warming obsessives when you need them? In darkened theaters, wearing rubber gloves and drooling over the latest globaloney peep show from Al Gore.

For those truly sick enough to require pictures to get off, I have some. If you have a stump fetish like SDGE, you're going to love
these. Those of us with normal environmental urges, however, will want to puke at these photos.

As a Supreme Court justice once said, pornography cannot be defined, but you know it when you see it. Have a gander at some
corporate porn. 

Today the Bureau of Land Management announced the lifting of its moratorium on solar energy applications on federal land.

"We are happy to see that BLM will continue to process solar applications. With consumers facing rapidly increasing energy costs, the United States cannot afford to delay solar projects any longer." Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) President Rhone Resch said in today's statement. Click here to read his more from SEIA.

The Bureau of Land Management issued a press release saying:

"We heard the concerns expressed during the scoping period about waiting to consider new applications," said BLM Director James Caswell, "and we are taking action. By continuing to accept and process new applications for solar energy projects, we will aggressively help meet growing interest in renewable energy sources, while ensuring environmental protections." Click here to read more from BLM.

The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, an independent opinion research group has released a nationwide study finding that "amid record gas prices, public support for greater energy exploration is spiking . . . and an increasing proportion (of people taking the survey) also says that developing new sources of energy - rather than protecing the environment - is the more important national priority.

The survey's found that an increasing number of support for energy exploration came from groups that previously had "viewed this as a less important priority."

Click here to read the entire survey.

The Bureau of Land Management has struck a blow to the alternative energy industry by placing a moratorium on new solar projects on public lands.

The New York Times reports that BLM says an extensive environmental study is needed to determine how large solar plants might affect millions of acres it oversees in six Western States. Click here to read the entire article.

The U.S. Energy Department has released its Annual Energy Outlook 2008 report with projections to 2030 this week. The following excerpt is under the title, Oil Production:

There is considerable uncertainty surrounding the future of unconventional crude oil production in the United States. Environmental regulations could either preclude unconventional production or raise its cost significantly. If future U.S. laws limited and/or taxed greenhouse gas emissions, they could lead to substantial increases in the costs of unconventional production, which emits significant volumes of CO2. Restrictions on access to water also could prove costly, especially in the arid West. In addition, environmental restrictions on land use could preclude unconventional oil production in some areas of the United States.
Click here to find all of the reports.

Today, Jim Jelter of Marketwatch covers the reports in his column. He says:

The Energy Department reasons that much of the supply tightness currently gripping the market, whether real or imagined, is likely to ease as major new oil fields come on line in Brazil, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Russia and even here in North America. That would signal a fundamental shift in the supply-demand picture, even though output would need to increase by about 12 million barrels a day -- over half the 20 million barrels of oil the U.S. currently burns in a day -- to keep pace with global demand.

Investors have a choice in the weeks and months ahead. They can either pay attention to underlying fundamentals in the marketplace or, like Macbeth, they can continue to listen to witches playing on their innermost fears and succumb to madness. Click here to read more from Marketwatch.

The Senate Republicans have managed to defeat the renewal of the critical solar energy credits six times now.
President Bush's latest scheme to get Saudi Arabia to pump more oil toward an addicted nation has been put into motion and Thomas L. Friedman of the New York Times doesn't mince words when he tells us in his column Sunday that it is hard for him:

"to find the words to express what a massive, fraudulent, pathetic excuse for an energy policy this is. But it gets better. The president actually had the gall to set a deadline for this drug deal."

That deadline is Independence day. A day that many Americans watch parades and set fireworks off in the darken hours celebrating freedom from oppression.

Click here to read Friedman's column.

Click here to read the Monday's Washington Post's article headlined. "White House welcomes Saudi oil output pledge."

The addict-in-chief isn't the only Republican addicted to oil. Read Charles Langley's December 2007 blog. Pete Domenici at that writing was the top recipient of dollars from oil and gas companies, electric utilities, and natural gas transmission and distribution corporations. Now, according to www.opensecret.org, Domenici has received over $168,000 for campaign finance cycle 2008 from the oil and gas industry alone.

Earlier this week the president of SEIA (The Solar Energy Industries Association) Rhone Resch released a statement about his disappointment "that the Senate has once again failed to reach a bipartisan consensus that would allow this important legislation to move forward." More.

He is speaking about the Energy Independence & Tax Relief Act, H.R. 6049.

Monday, a New York Times editorial had urged the Senate "to begin to redeem itself, by approving a bill to extend vital tax credits for renewable fuel sources like wind and solar power." More.

The Washington Post reported on Tuesday that the Senate blocked debate of the bill leaving the fate of the credits uncertain. More.

On Wednesday, Politico.com explained the whole thing to us in an article that shed some light on the hostility and partisan bickering. More.

The San Fransciso Chronicle brings the discussion home to California where the potential loss of revenue is great:

William Morin, director of government affairs for Santa Clara-based Applied Materials said that without a steady policy of tax incentives most manufacturing will continue to go overseas. More.

Click here to see the voting record for the Senate for H.R. 6049.

In six months the investment tax credits, meant to stimulate investment in solar energy, and the production tax credit, meant to encourage investment in wind energy, are set to expire unless congress makes them a priority and renews them.

So far the quarreling in Congress hasn't abated.

If you haven't had an opportunity to read Thomas Friedman's op-ed piece that ran in The New York Times in late April, I'm recommending it and providing a link.

Also, and more importantly, here are links to the Senate and to the House of Representatives. Let them know where you stand on solar incentive programs.