“It should now be clear to all that Amendment 1 is a manipulatively designed tool for the utility industry to continue to dominate the energy market in Florida,” Tory Perfetti, chairman of Floridians for Solar Choice, an opposition group, said in a release Monday. “There is no other reason to dedicate roughly $25 million in an attempt to pass this anti-consumer, antisolar, anti-free market amendment.”
This story of trickery and deceit, fomented by our own justices, except for Barbara Pariente, who had the brains and integrity to call it “misleading” and a masquerade, can be seen in its entirety at this link in the Gainesville Sun.
End result: make sure to VOTE NO on Amendment 1 and tell all your friends.
Comments by OSFR historian Jim Tatum.
-A river is like a life: once taken, it cannot be brought back-
Utilities pouring money into solar amendment
By Jim Turner
The News Service of Florida
TALLAHASSEE — Four major electric utilities have surpassed the $20 million mark in combined contributions to support a proposed constitutional amendment on solar energy.
Florida Power & Light and Duke Energy last week dropped nearly $3 million into the “Consumers for Smart Solar” initiative — Amendment 1 on the ballot — that has been opposed by most major environmental groups in the state.
The latest money came as ads from Consumers for Smart Solar proclaim that Amendment 1 is “solar done right.” But backers of the initiative also have been grappling with a controversy stemming from the release of a tape in which a policy director for a Tallahassee-based think tank claimed to outline the utility industry’s efforts to deceive voters.
The latest contributions, $2 million on Oct. 24 from FPL and $999,998 last Tuesday from Duke, brought to nearly $20.2 million the amount the state’s four largest private utilities have spent on the amendment.