Today, we got two big endorsements for our Carbon Reduction Surcharge
plan to create 18,000 green jobs and turn the DWP into the greenest
utility in the country.
Vice President Al Gore wrote on his website:
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa of Los Angeles has introduced one
of the most forward-thinking clean energy plans I have ever seen. He’s
calling it a Carbon Reduction Surcharge. It allocates a portion of the
Los Angeles Department of Water and Power’s rate collection into a trust
fund to create a renewable energy and efficiency trust fund to invest
in clean, green energy and job creation.
And the Vice President isn’t the only one coming out for
our innovative plan. Today, the Sierra Club also stood behind our
aggressive agenda for escalating our renewable energy goals and spurring
job creation in the City. 
In a must read blog post on the Huffington Post, Jim
Corcoran of the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign writes:
It makes neither long-term nor short-term economic sense for
Los Angeles to continue exporting our money to out of state coal
corporations when we can instead invest in energy efficiency and
renewable energy technologies that will put thousands of Angelenos to
work.[The Carbon Reduction Surcharge] would shine much-needed sunlight on the
DWP planning process, create thousands of local jobs and generate the
funds for energy efficiency and renewable energy projects that will
harness the power of sunlight to wean our City off dirty and dangerous
coal-fired power.
We’re grateful to Vice President Gore and
the Sierra Club for their support in our efforts to turn Los Angeles
into a capital of the new, green economy.
To read more about the Carbon Reduction Surcharge, read this fact sheet.
Thank you,
Mayor Villaraigosa