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series of regional convened forums throughout 2002, the Public Policy Insti-
tute gathered opinions and perspectives from citizens and leaders throughout
the Golden State. A constant theme was the value and concern for protecting
the environment. Because of this, the state legislature took the initiative in
passing laws to protect the environment as well as plan for the future growth of
California.
A good example of the regional approach undertaken by the Legislature is
the California Environmental Goals Policy Report passed as the Wiggins Bill
(AB #857) in September 2002 that requires the Governor to form a statewide
environmental plan that must go to the Legislature for approval. This statewide
plan is the first such on in over 25 years but does not dictate to the local
communities and cities as to what to do. It basically establishes public policy
and provides some direction as to the state’s plans for growth. The first report
was issues at the end of Governor Davis’ term in office before the recall took
effect (EGPR, 2003).

The Economic Advantages of Civic Capitalism
The second theme that underlies civic capitalism is the importance of
publiceprivate partnerships. Building on the first theme of cooperation, the
public is a favored cooperator with private firms. From an economic
perspective, the public role increases in complex industries and economies
because of the special role of public participants in facilitating business
activities that are beneficial to business and that pursue the public good. The
partnerships in energy have gotten more complex over time and the beneficial
partnerships are markedly different from the early regulatory relationship.
Regulators primarily tried to keep the monopoly utilities from raising rates too
high, whereas the new partnerships try to use public resources to help better
meet civic interests. In the past the public role with utilities was the power to
say “no”; however, the emerging role is for the public to say “yes.”
What is the role of government in business? Much of the economic liter-
ature has been focused on the dichotomy between free markets and tight
regulation as in the historical electrical industry. The emerging era of
publiceprivate partnerships is neither. The justification for public involvement
in the power industry is twofold. First, the transmission and distribution
monopoly and technological nature of electricity networks mean that the
public has an interest in overseeing the private suppliers of such an essential
part of modern life. This point has been made consistently in previous chap-
ters. Second, the public has many social and environmental interests that
intersect with the provision of electricity, such as environmental protection,
public safety, equity, economic development, and long-term reliability. Simply
put, given the extensive public agenda, it is more effective to try to reach these
goals through partnerships than rule making. This is not unique to the elec-
tricity industry, although it stands out in very clear relief.