By Carmen Forman | Arizona Capitol Times
Billionaire Democratic mega-donor Tom Steyer criticized the state’s largest electric company and the biggest competitor of his clean energy ballot initiative Friday for using shady tactics to block a public vote of the renewable energy measure in November.
Steyer also hypothesized Arizona Public Service might be willing to make a deal to boost its renewable energy production if the Clean Energy for a Healthy Arizona ballot initiative makes it on the ballot.
The California environmentalist and founder of NextGen Climate Action, which is pushing the ballot initiative to mandate half of all electricity produced in Arizona come from renewable energy sources, sat down with the Arizona Capitol TimesFriday.
The clean energy initiative will be tied up in court starting Monday as attorneys representing Arizonans for Affordable Electricity — an opposition group funded by APS — work to knock the measure off the ballot. The group has done everything possible to keep the ballot initiative from qualifying by first employing an extensive PR campaign to prevent people from signing the ballot petitions to now challenging the initiative in court in a trial that could take up to five days.
