Proposition 7

Supporters for one of two renewable energy propositions Tuesday said early returns didn't look encouraging, with Proposition 7 being opposed by 66.3 percent of the vote.

The measure had 33.7 percent support, with about 28.5 percent of ballots counted.

"We're not calling it yet, but we are lagging," said Steve Hopcraft, a spokesman for Yes on 7.

WASHINGTON D.C. - Today Americans for Tax Reform, a non-profit taxpayer advocacy organization that opposes all tax increases as a matter of principle, officially announced its opposition to the California Solar and Clean Energy Initiative, which will appear on the November ballot as Proposition 7. 

"Yes on 7", the organization working to pass Proposition 7 which would require utility companies to produce half of their energy from renewable resources, has a series of ads on the air.

Below is one of them. Here is another. And yet another.

A Nov. 4 ballot measure that would mandate a large increase in California's renewable energy usage is in violation of a state law on robocalls.

Shaun Dakin, who is attempting to create a national do-not-call registry for political calls, said he's received 13 complaints about robocalls from the Public Media Center backing Proposition 7.

The California Public Utilities Commission has come out against Proposition 7, calling the measure bad for consumers and a prelude to less, not more, renewable energy.

The commission, which regulates utilities such as telephones and electricity, unanimously voted to oppose the measure at its meeting Thursday.

The California State Firefighters Association came out against Proposition 7 last week, saying it had too many questions about how much oversight local government would have of new power plants approved under the measure.

According to a press release from the anti-Proposition 7 group Californians Against Another Costly Electric Scheme, association president Kevin Nida said local public safety groups would be stripped of their ability to review new plants under the measure.

An anti-Proposition 7 group launched a new ad this week with warnings from small renewable energy group and taxpayers on how they'd be affected if the measure passes.

In the ad, Susan Kateley, executive director of the California Solar Energy Industries Association, said the measure mandates that renewable energy be bought from the largest providers of such resources.

"That's why most renewable producers and environmental groups oppose Prop. 7," she says in the ad, which began airing over the weekend.

Both the sides for and against California's Proposition 7 claimed at least partial victories Thursday over a Sacramento County Superior Court decision on language in the ballot measure's arguments.

The Yes on 7 campaign noted that Judge Michael Kenny left unchanged portions of their argument in support of the measure, such as that the measure would never add more than 3 percent annually to residents' electric bills, that it would create over 370,000 new jobs and that it would bar utilities from passing penalties onto ratepayers if the utilities failed to meet the measure's requirements for renewable energy.

But the No on 7 campaign claimed victory as well, saying the judge had rejected petitions by Proposition 7 supporters to change language about how the measure would affect small-scale renewable energy companies.