Key Takeaways
California is taxing energy via its “cap and invest” program to pay to put solar panels on qualified farmworker homes at no cost to them.
In addition to solar panels, other energy-saving devices or services are eligible to farm workers in 18 California counties.
The state does not require eligible farmworkers to be citizens.
The costs are averaging about $23,000 per participating household.
California has another program to provide rooftop solar panels to low-income residents, in which the paperwork required of recipients becomes so burdensome that applicants abandon their pursuit of funding.
Funds in that program are distributed through nonprofits, government agencies, and companies, which are also politically active, raising questions about the program’s efficacy.
There is little evidence that the revenues spent on either program have had an appreciable impact in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
California’s Farmworker Housing Component provides solar technology and efficiency upgrades to low-income farmworker households at no cost to them. The program is funded from revenues that come from California’s “cap-and-invest climate program,” which taxes companies that emit carbon and redistributes approximately $3 billion per year to energy programs and left-wing social causes. It is part of the state’s Low-Income Weatherization Program. Critics have reframed it as “California Is Giving Free Solar Panels to Illegal Aliens” since participants do not need to be citizens. The state has earmarked about $49 million since 2019 for the farmworker component, serving about 2,000 families, resulting in an average cost of about $23,000 per household.
To qualify, at least one household member must be an agricultural employee, and the household must meet income guidelines. They may not earn above a certain threshold–$49,000 for a couple, $62,000 a year for a family of four. That is, they must be at or below 80% of the Area or State Median Income. The property must be located in one of the targeted California counties with the highest farmworker populations. The farmworkers program began in two counties in 2019 and has expanded to 18 of the state’s 58 counties.
Services are provided for single-family homes as well as small multifamily buildings (2 to 4 units) that are either owned or rented by the farmworker family. Depending on the home’s needs, upgrades may include solar panels, central heating/cooling, insulation, water heaters, window replacements, and energy-efficient appliances (refrigerators, freezers, washers, dryers).
The program so far has not covered the cost of storage batteries, which would allow homeowners to store energy from sunlight for later use when the sun goes down. Voters approved a $10 billion climate bond last year, and the program would like to use that money to fund batteries, allowing participants to run their appliances and homes with stored energy. Using stored energy, the household would essentially be off the grid unless the batteries provide insufficient backup power.
The state has heavily advertised the program to California’s nearly 900,000 agricultural workers, half to three-quarters of whom are illegal immigrants. California’s Department of Community Services and Development acknowledges that non-citizens are eligible for the program and that they even accept identification from foreign governments. That is, participants do not need “legal status” in the United States. An estimated 18% of California’s farmworkers own homes and could benefit from energy upgrades.
California’s Department of Community Services and Development selected La Cooperativa Campesina de California, a nonprofit that serves farmworkers, to administer the program through a competitive procurement and an initial funding award of approximately $10.7 million. La Cooperativa, in turn, has partnered with a for-profit, “minority owned” company, MAROMA Energy Services, to help run the program. Contractors do the work of installing solar panels and other appliances in homes.
Another California Solar Program for the Poor
The Solar on Multifamily Affordable Housing (SOMAH) program began under Governor Jerry Brown, who signed legislation requiring a state commission to allocate up to $100 million per year from California’s cap-and-trade program (now cap-and-invest) to pay for installing solar panels on apartment buildings in low-income areas. California has allocated nearly $900 million to SOMAH in the hopes of obtaining 300 megawatts of solar power by 2030. Since 2015, the program has installed only 129 megawatts of solar power for approximately 65,600 residents—nowhere close to the target of 1 million “solar renters” that advocates wanted—at a cost of $131 million.
Customers were turned off by the paperwork, bureaucracy, and red tape. On average, projects take three and a half years to complete the program’s paperwork and inspections. More than 400 applications have been either canceled or withdrawn, or about a third of the total. Some projects that were fully installed have been waiting for permission to begin operating for a year or more. More than $700 million of the program’s budget has not been spent.
Some companies, however, are profiting. The managers of the SOMAH program have spent about $60 million on overhead, including salaries, conferences, and website development. And, San Francisco-based Sunrun Inc., a solar provider, has been the contractor for 78% of SOMAH projects. The company donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to political candidates—including $50,000 to Gavin Newsom’s campaigns—and has employed lobbyists in Sacramento. Newsom hired former Sunrun employees to work in his administration. The governor appointed the company’s public policy manager to the California Energy Commission and appointed its former chief policy officer to a regional water quality control board.
Analysis
California has solar and/or energy-efficiency programs that provide technology to low-income families at no cost to them. California’s Farmworker Housing Component and the Solar on Multifamily Affordable Housing program obtain their funds from California’s cap-and-invest program, which taxes companies that emit carbon and redistributes those funds to projects that fund “clean” energy. The farmworker program provides free solar, heat pumps, and appliances to farming households that qualify based on location, income, and housing type. Participants in that program, however, do not need to be U.S. citizens to qualify. In the case of SOMAH, the program is run so inefficiently that most poor families lose interest and cancel or withdraw. Neither program is reducing greenhouse gas emissions appreciably. And some poor folks find it hard to justify poking a hole in their roof for a small amount of benefit.
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