Ad watch: Proposition 10 ad leaves out some interesting facts

Sacramento Bee
Tuesday, Oct. 14, 2008

A television ad promoting Proposition 10 on the Nov. 4 ballot urges Californians to wean themselves from foreign oil by borrowing $5 billion to help businesses and consumers buy alternatively fueled vehicles or highly efficient models such as gasoline-electric hybrids.

Here is a script of the ad and an analysis by Bee staff writer Chris Bowman.

Script

Narrator: Politicians in Washington and Sacramento argue about our energy policies while we spend billions on foreign oil instead of investing that money here at home. (Video of U.S. Capitol and House chambers and a tanker vessel headlined "$700 billion on foreign oil.")

Take control of our energy future. Vote yes on Proposition 10. (Video of solar panel against clean, blue sky.)

Proposition 10 gives Californians rebates to purchase vehicles that run on clean alternative fuels produced in America and produces more renewable energy in California from the sun and the wind with strict accountability and no new taxes. (Video of "hydrogen fuel cell" and "hybrid gasoline-electric" logos on cars, a natural gas-powered car being refueled and solar and wind farms.)

Vote yes on Proposition 10. We can't afford to wait. (Wind-blown, pigtailed girl in green sweater holding a spinning pinwheel in a field with modern windmills in background.)

Analysis

The ad capitalizes on popular sentiment for clean, efficient and secure energy – and no new taxes. What goes unadvertised might stir the public's distaste for special interest-driven initiatives, particularly those that increase state debt.

Nearly all $13 million in campaign contributions so far has come from Texas billionaire T. Boone Pickens, who stands to profit from its passage. Pickens is founder of Clean Energy Fuels Corp. of Seal Beach, the nation's largest supplier of natural gas for fleets of vehicles, including Sacramento city and county garbage trucks.

More than half of the $5 billion would be spent on rebates to companies and consumers that buy environmentally friendlier vehicles. And most of that rebate money is dedicated to heavy-duty trucks and vans, the kind of fleet vehicles that Pickens' company supplies.

With interest charges over 30 years, taxpayers' total cost of the $5 billion bond would be $10 billion, according to the state Legislative Analyst's Office. The money would come from the state's general fund.