Uncertain National Landscape

For Clean Tech, One Big Election Win and an Uncertain National Landscape

In the span of just over 24 hours, California won two big victories this week. On Monday Nov. 1, the San Francisco Giants defeated the Texas Rangers to win the World Series by a convincing four games to one. And on Tuesday Nov. 2, California voters delivered a similarly resounding victory to the state's clean-energy economy in the nation's most important vote for clean tech, defeating Proposition 23 by an overwhelming 61-39 percent margin.

As most know, Prop. 23 would have suspended California's pioneering greenhouse gas reduction laws (AB 32), likely for a very long time, jeopardizing clean-tech investment, deployment, and job growth. That prospect galvanized the clean-tech business community in California and across the nation, which mobilized to raise considerably more money than its well-funded opposition mainly from the oil industry. Californians also elected stalwart clean-tech supporter Jerry Brown as their next governor by a 13-point margin over challenger Meg Whitman, who opposed Prop. 23 but said she'd like to suspend AB 32 for one year to study its economic impact. And Golden State voters also re-elected another great clean-tech ally, Sen. Barbara Boxer, to her fourth term. {read rest}