Dive Brief:
- The Edison Electric Institute (EEI), an investor-owned utility trade group, is pushing African-American lawmakers to oppose net energy metering measures for solar energy, according to reporting from the Huffington Post.
- An exclusive meeting last week between an EEI regulatory executive and representatives and staffers from the Congressional Black Caucus was aimed at persuading caucus members that net metering policies do not benefit African Americans, according unnamed attendees.
- Those at the presentation included David Owens, executive vice president of business operations and regulatory affairs for the Edison Electric Institute, and Rep. Joseph Gibbons, who chairs the National Black Caucus of State Legislators committee on energy, transportation and environment, according to an invitation to the event provided to HuffPo.
Dive Insight:
20-25 staffers representing the Congressional Black Caucus and at least one lawmaker met with an the utility trade group last week to discuss net metering and minority communities, but the Huffington Post reports a tepid response to the whole idea.
HuffPo spoke with an a staffer who attended the event, who said "I walked away thinking there was a lot of insinuation and not a lot of facts."
Earlier this year the caucus released a paper on "The Need to Develop & Implement Equitable Energy Policies."
"This was billed as a briefing to talk about a report that came out saying that communities of color would be impacted. The report didn't come up. It was just a lot of rhetoric, some of which was backed up by specifics, most of which was debatable," Huffington Post quoted their source.
