Last Sunday, I followed up on a IJ four-part investigative series regarding MCE (formerly Marin Clean Energy) and its unwieldy 34-member governing board.

MCE is a “community choice aggregator.” That concept allows cities and counties to pool their electricity load to purchase “clean energy.” They don’t generate or distribute electricity. CCAs are publicly run marketplaces that assemble the package of electrons which are mostly produced and delivered by the Pacific Gas and Electric Co.

For the past 15 years, MCE’s top executive has been CEO Dawn Weisz. Past MCE director and Ross Councilmember Mathew Salter contends that Weisz “is running the show, running roughshod over the board.”

Proof of Salter’s accuracy is Weisz’s total compensation. According to the California state controller, Weisz’s 2024 compensation package totaled $817,252. That includes “total wages of $703,514” and “retirement and health contributions of $113,741.” The IJ reported this year “Weisz’s current salary is $532,000, plus a cost-of-living adjustment, before a $41,000 bonus and benefits.”

According to MCE director and Belvedere Councilmember Sally Wilkinson, the differing totals stem from 2024 when Weisz received an outsized supposedly one-time bonus. Whether it’s either her 2024 or the 2025 total package, that gargantuan compensation is a scandal resulting from a board of directors’ supermajority that appears to be dominated by its professional staff.

In contrast is Los Angeles’ mammoth Department of Water and Power, America’s largest public utility. It’s overseen by a four-member Board of Commissioners.

Janisse Quiñones, its CEO/chief engineer, earns $750,000 a year plus benefits. In 2024, her total comp was only a bit higher than Weisz’s. Quiñones leads an agency with 12,000 employees, 4 million customers and an annual budget of more than 7.5 billion. According to the state controller, MCE has 157 employees, serves 540,000 ratepayers and its 2025 budget is $837 million.

Many energy consumers have little idea that they are being partly served by MCE. There’s an obscure reference to it on monthly bills that look like ordinary PG&E bills. According to MCE, “State law says that CCAs become the default, or first provider of energy service. Instead of automatically starting service with PG&E, new accounts start service with MCE. But customers have a choice! You can switch to PG&E whenever you wish.”

Our state Legislature should never have authorized a “default” energy provider. It’s far better for electricity consumers to be offered a choice between CCA and investor-owned utilities without the state Legislature putting its finger on the public’s energy choice scale. Repealing that law would make selecting MCE a truly voluntary decision.

MCE’s aspirational mission is to encourage, promote and facilitate green energy. Understand that terms used by community choice aggregators, California’s Energy Commission and common usage differ. It depends on the definitions of “clean,” “renewable” and “greenhouse-gas free.”

To the state, “renewable” electricity is power that is generated from wind, solar, small-scale hydroelectric, geothermal and biomass. Neither nuclear power nor large-scale hydropower is considered renewable despite the reality that neither are fossil fuel sourced and don’t generate climate-changing greenhouse gases.

MCE’s delivery of green power is as promised but conditioned on when the sun shines, and on the weather. There are times of the day when “renewable” energy as presently defined isn’t available in sufficient quantity to meet demand because the Golden State’s power grid doesn’t have sufficient storage capacity to meet peak demand.

Environmental activists have succeeded in discouraging California nuclear and water-power electricity production. That’s short sighted if the primary goal is creating sustainability. Nuclear and hydro have downsides, yet they are crucial in fostering a greenhouse gas-free future. PG&E’s energy mix is 98% greenhouse gas free since it includes hydro and nuclear.

Ratepayers can clarify MCE’s costs and environmental results by commissioning independent financial and management audits. To be credible, the two reviews need to be conducted under the auspices of Marin County’s Civil Grand Jury.

Columnist Dick Spotswood of Mill Valley writes on local issues Sundays and Wednesdays. Email him at spotswood@comcast.net.