Sustainable Economies Law Center Intervenes in CA Proceeding for Shared Renewable Energy

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On November 12, the Sustainable Economies Law Center became an official party to a proceeding at the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC). Our intention is to help implement Senate Bill (SB) 43, the Green Tariff Shared Renewables Program, which was signed into law last month.  SB 43 establishes a 600 MW pilot program – the largest distributed generation goal in the nation – and allows customers of California’s three investor-owned utilities (IOUs) to subscribe to a shared renewable energy facility in their service territory and receive a credit in their monthly utility bill.

THE DEVIL IS IN THE DETAILS.

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Sustainable Economies Law Center Intervenes in CA Proceeding for Shared Renewable Energy

On November 12, the Sustainable Economies Law Center became an official party to a proceeding at the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC). Our intention is to help implement Senate Bill (SB) 43, the Green Tariff Shared Renewables Program, which was signed into law in October of 2013.  SB 43 establishes a 600 MW pilot program – the largest distributed generation goal in the nation – and allows customers of California’s three investor-owned utilities (IOUs) to subscribe to a shared renewable energy facility in their service territory and receive a credit in their monthly utility bill.

But the devil is in the details.

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Annual Fall Celebration & Showcase

The Annual Fall Celebration

SELC's annual Fall Celebration & Showcase is coming soon! We hold this event every year to celebrate the year's successes, connect with our friends, and thank our supporters in person. As we move into Fall, this is our opportunity to harvest the fruits of our work supporting the transition to more just and resilient local economies - so come on out and give thanks with us!

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Meet Us at the Legal Cafe: Interview with Chris Tittle, Director of Organizational Resilience

"The concept of resilience is about learning from the natural world how to adapt and respond to change. In a time of so many converging transitions – in the regenerative capacity of the Earth, in the ways we meet our individual and collective needs, in how we relate to the larger web of life around us – how can we build our collective capacity to adjust and co-evolve in response to changing conditions around us? In the social and economic context, resilience is about creating more culturally appropriate and community-determined ways of meeting our needs, and re-embedding our economies in real human relationships."

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RELEASED TODAY – First-Ever Sharing Economy City Policy Brief

Share this with every urban leader, mayor, city planner, or council member you know.

Today, the Sustainable Economies Law Center and Shareable released the first ever policy brief of its kind, called Policies for Shareable Cities: A Sharing Economy Policy Primer for Urban Leaders. It details 32 specific policy steps that local leaders can take to benefit from the growing sharing economy and support innovations such as carsharing, ridesharing, cohousing, cooperatives, and urban agriculture.  Click here for the press release. Click here for PDF.

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Press Release - Policies for Shareable Cities: A Policy Primer for Urban Leaders

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Yassi Eskandari-Qajar / [email protected]

New report details what cities can do now to benefit from a sharing economy

San Francisco, CA (September 9, 2013) — A new report released today by the Sustainable Economies Law Center (SELC) and Shareable details policy steps that city governments can take to benefit from the growing sharing economy by supporting innovations such as ridesharing, carsharing, cohousing, cooperatives, and urban agriculture.

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Fall 2013 Sharing Economy Law Workshop Series

This fall, SELC is offering an 11-part workshop series for attorneys and legal professionals seeking to build skills and knowledge to meet the legal needs of the sharing economy.  Click here for the full listing of workshops. This is the first workshop series of its kind!  The curriculum for the workshop expands upon SELC’s groundbreaking book, Practicing Law in the Sharing Economy (ABA Books 2012).

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Ask a Food Lawyer: Breaking Down Legal Barriers for Small-Scale Local Food

"If we are going to move from the current centralized food system to a local, diversified new food economy, sharing has to be part of the solution. Corporate control of our food system vests decision-making power with a very small group of people whose profit-maximizing goals often deplete resources from communities rather than strengthen them..."

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Raising a Nation of Lincolns: An Interview with Janelle Orsi, “The Sharing Lawyer”

That what a peer-to-peer economy needs is more attorneys might, in lay people, spark cognitive dissonance. The problem, according to Orsi, is how society thinks about lawyers. And to fix a modern problem, she and her colleagues are leaning on the model of that famous attorney of centuries past, Abraham Lincoln.

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The California Homemade Food Act

Governor Jerry Brown signed Assembly Bill 1616, the California Homemade Food Act, into law on September 21, 2012, and it went into effect on January 1, 2013. Now it is legal to produce some types of food for sale in a home kitchen. Next year, the California Neighborhood Food Act will likely become law, enabling citizens to legally sell produce grown on residential lots. The two laws will work together synergistically, such that tiny food artisans may source from tiny growers.

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So You Want to Start a Food Business

Food biz proprietors and other local experts offer their top tips for new food entrepreneurs.

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Profiles in Sharing: Janelle Orsi - The Sharing Economy Lawyer

As a sharing lawyer, Janelle Orsi thought she would write agreements and form organizations. She quickly realized however, that her clients were continually running up against legal barriers that were too high and too difficult for people to navigate. In go-getter fashion, Orsi co-founded, along with attorney Jenny Kassan, the Sustainable Economies Law Center (SELC) to break down some of the legal barriers and help people navigate them.

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SELC Takes Advisory Role in Forming Groundbreaking Sustainable Living Research Ordinance

The Sustainable Living Research Ordinance (SLRO) provides Goleta local government with a regulatory pathway to enable residential sustainability projects and designs otherwise illegal under current law. The ordinance does so by designating a property as a "Sustainable Living Research Site," where practices including natural building, onsite wastewater treatment, and self-sustaining agricultural villages would be permitted uses.

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20 Ways SELC is Changing the World this Summer!

Legal CafeSELC has been working hard since our last newsletter and we want you, our friends and supporters, to know what we've been up to. Read below for 20 exciting ways that SELC has been leading the way towards more just and resilient economies!

1. Legal Cafes

SELC is providing one of the most innovative legal advice clinics in the country, the Resilient Communities Legal Cafe. It's 1/3 Legal Advice Clinic, 1/3 Living Classroom, 1/3 Community Building and Collaboration Space! SELC staff and volunteer attorneys provide pay-it-forward legal advice for projects and organizations that build the sharing economy.

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Terra Verde, KPFA: Special on the Legal Barriers to the Sharing Economy

SELC's Director of City Policies and Community Currencies, Yassi Eskandari-Qajar, discusses the sharing economy with host Michelle Chan.

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