Governor Schwarzenegger Celebrates Earth Day

Governor Schwarzenegger Celebrates Earth Day

MAYOR LIVENGOOD:

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Bob Livengood, I'm the mayor of Milpitas. And on behalf of the city council and the citizens of our great city, welcome to the city of Milpitas, particularly to our Honorable Governor.

I wanted to introduce a few people who are in the audience and on the stage here this morning with us.

First off, from my city we have Councilmember Debbie Giordano, our city manager Tom Williams and our Fire Chief Jeff Clet. Thank you all for being here. (Applause)

Now we have with us on the stage, of course, some folks from SunPower and Flextronics but I do want to introduce a few of our guests who are here. Mr. Tom Warner, the CEO of SunPower, is with us today. Tom? (Applause) We also have E.C. Sykes, the president of Flextronics. (Applause) We are very pleased and honored to have Secretary Victoria Bradshaw of the California Labor and Workforce Development Agency. (Applause) And we also have Anne Smart from the Silicon Valley Leadership Group. (Applause)

I have a very important job today but let me make a couple of brief comments before I introduce the governor. I'm very excited to be here today to help celebrate the 25th anniversary of our new Milpitas business partner, SunPower. I am delighted to welcome SunPower to Milpitas and I congratulate Flextronics on becoming a new partner with both the city of Milpitas and SunPower in this new manufacturing facility.

I am particularly honored to have with us today the governor of the state of the California. For the last six and a half years our governor has worked tirelessly to bring new jobs to California and he has demonstrated a commitment to rekindling the manufacturing jobs sector here in our state. He recognizes the importance of creating new manufacturing jobs in California and his efforts have played a major role in the success that we celebrate here today in Milpitas.

Ladies and gentlemen, it is my pleasure and distinct honor to introduce to you the governor of the great state of California, the Honorable Arnold Schwarzenegger. (Applause)

GOVERNOR SCHWARZENEGGER:

Well, thank you very much, Mayor Livengood -- that's how you pronounce it, Levengood or Livengood? Livengood. Livengood, Levengood, whatever. (Laughter) With me it's fine. Just the fact that you have such a great introduction of me, no matter what your name is, it makes no difference to me. (Laughter) But it sounds good and you're a good mayor and a good leader, so let's give him a big hand for the great leadership that you have been showing. Thank you. (Applause)

Also I want to say thank you to Tom Warner for his great, great leadership also. And he was a great partner in a panel discussion that we just had on Monday and, of course, I have been talking to him for many, many years as he's been building this company and so on. So I want to say thank you to him for the great partnership and also for organizing this whole event here, this press event. So let's give him a big hand also again. (Applause)

And also E.C. Sykes, the president of Flextronics, we want to say thank you for being here today. And let's give them also, their whole company, a big, big applause. (Applause)

And then Vickie Bradshaw, our Secretary of Labor. Thank you also for traveling up and down the state and talking about the important issue of job creation and keeping companies here in California. A big hand also to Vickie Bradshaw. (Applause)

And this really, I think, is a celebration in a way today, because it all started with this man here. And I talked to Tom before my State of the State Address and he said, "You know, I'm not going to tell you what to say at your State of the State," he said, "but one of the things that you ought to talk about is job creation and about keeping businesses in California."

And I said to him, I said, "It's interesting you say that, because that is a big part of my speech and I have actually a whole proposal of a Job Creation Package, of five points, because we want to keep jobs here in California and we want to create jobs and we want to keep companies here."

And he was sharing with me that he is right now going through this dilemma, that his company is doing is really well in business, that green technology companies are doing well in business, they are hiring, they want to expand and that his company, SunPower, is ready to expand. But he said, "I'm a little confused still about where it should be." So that's how he drew me in, right? (Laughter) That's the trick he used.

So I said, "What do you mean, you're confused? You're never confused about anything." (Laughter) "You know very clearly which direction to go with your company."

He said, "Oh, you know, there are offers I am getting from Florida, great offers in tax incentives that I'm getting from Arizona, from all kinds of states. It's really amazing the kind of things that they offer today, because the economy is down," he says. "Of course we'd love to stay here in California but you've got to have at least some of those proposals also and some kind of tax incentives."

So, of course, when I heard that, now competition is on, right? So I couldn't let those governors be number one and take businesses away from California. So this is what happened. We just came up with a really great package and we started creating incentives to, first of all, increase the amount of reverse metering that we can do in the state of California, from 2.5 to 5 percent. And we passed the tax incentives for new hire and for job creation and for green technology manufacturing equipment so it doesn't get taxed, just pretty much like other states are doing. Let us be competitive.

So we did those kind of things and so we are very happy today to say here that this man here, Tom, has decided -- and his company and the owners and everyone has decided -- that they're going to expand right here in California. So a big hand to all of you and thank you. (Applause)

So we are delighted that we could be helpful in that and that we can be partners, because I always say that the government ought to go and make laws and regulations and so on and then get out of the way. Let businesses do what businesses do best. We have to be a partner in prosperity rather than an obstacle to success and this is what we have been trying to do since I've come into office here.

SunPower is one of the world's leading developers of solar panels and technology. Of course we want them to stay here. And this is very important; they make a great, great contribution to the state of California. As a matter of fact right now, as you all know, that SunPower is building with PG&E one of the largest, if not the largest, solar farm in the world down in San Luis Obispo. So this is really extraordinary. Again, it will put the spotlight on California because of the great technology we have here.

And this is the only way that we're really going to make meeting our goals, because it's one thing to set goals with AB 32, to say we're going to reduce our greenhouse gases by 25 percent by the year 2020. But how are you going to get there? Only through technology -- only through technology. Because I don't believe that people should stop anything. I don't believe that people should stop with their Jacuzzis or with their flat screen TVs, (Laughter) or with driving big cars and flying the planes.

No, we've just got to change the technology, that is the most important thing. And that is technology that's being developed right here by SunPower. You make it possible that we will have one day renewable energy -- renewable energy, 33 percent of renewable energy -- only because of this kind of technology. So this is why I am so excited about it.

And it also proves, because you're expanding your business here, that protecting the environment and protecting the economy can be done simultaneously, because so many people don't still believe in that but we believe in that very strongly. This new plant will create more than 300 jobs at a time when we need those jobs most, so this is why I'm excited about it. So we want to congratulate Tom and the company and the entire team for making that decision.

And also, I'd like to make this announcement, because today is Earth Day. That's why we wanted to come here today. So, as you can see, I have a green tie. I don't know what happened here. (Laughter) I mean, you all are in the renewable energy business and you don't have green ties or green cowboy boots at least, or green clothes? There is one lady over there that has a green jacket on. You got the message to dress green today, right?

Because this is a very, very important day because this, 40 years ago through a grassroots effort -- and as you know, all great movements start on the grassroots level, little and then they start building and building and exploding. And now it is all over the world. Today 190 countries are celebrating Earth Day, over a billion people around the world are celebrating Earth Day.

So it has been really a great, great movement. And it all started way back in 1969 when there was an Ohio river that had so much trash in it that it actually caught on fire. Now, think about that. And then, since then, of course, at that time we also have a big mess in Santa Monica, California. Santa Monica Bay, there was sewage that was directly going into the ocean. You couldn't swim. Now you can swim again because it's all clean. Now the rivers in Ohio are clean, you can fish and you can eat that fish. So tremendous work has been done over the last few decades. And in Los Angeles there used to be dozens of Stage One smog alerts every year. Now there are none anymore. So those are the kind of great progress that has been made.

But even though we can celebrate I don't think we should sit on our laurels, because there's a lot of work that still needs to be done. I do not accept a future in California where we have every sixth child in the Central Valley go to school with an inhaler. I don't accept that we have so many people, because of pollution, die. More people are dying because of pollution than of car accidents. I don't accept that kind of a future. I don't also accept a future where we rely on fossil fuels or rely on oil from the Middle East and countries that hate us. I don't want to go and see a future like that. So this is why what we are doing here and what you are doing is so important.

So I'm very, very happy and I'm happy that we as government have done great, great work. From the time I came into office we started building the Hydrogen Highway, we started passing the Million Solar Roof program, the Low-Carbon Fuel Standard and also rolling back the greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent by the year 2020 and an additional 80 percent by the year 2050. And also our solar and renewable energy portfolio, to increase it and our goal is 33 percent by the year 2020 and the list goes on and on. There are things where the federal government is now paying so much attention to what we're doing that they're using us an example, which is great, because states are there to be the laboratory for the federal government. And all of this, of course, also creates jobs and this is why we are very happy about that. And I think that we want to continue with this effort, as I said.

And don't ever take for granted the laws that we passed, because there are always people out there that want to take them out. There are right now greedy Texas oil companies -- Texan oil companies -- that want to come in here, spend millions of dollars to roll back AB 32 and to take out all of our environmental laws. Why? Because they don't like that there is alternative energy being created. They don't like what you are doing here. They want to go and verschmutzt the world. (Laughter) Meaning to make it polluted the world, OK? So it's kind of a German Jewish word, verschmutzing. But anyway, they want to go and create the pollution because they only think about one thing. Not to clean California or to clean America or to clean the world but profits. That's what the oil companies like, profits. They only think about that. They are greedy and they only think about profits.

You know what happened to the electric car. I'm sure you have seen the video and the documentary, how in the '20s there were more electric cars than there were gasoline-fueled cars. And the oil companies got together in cahoots with the car manufacturers and then all of a sudden the electric cars were gone. And now they want to do the same thing again. They want to roll us back to the Stone Age. But that's why we have to fight. So you will see this on the ballot, this initiative and you know how to vote on those kinds of things, so we have to fight for this.

So anyway, I'm very happy to be here today to celebrate Earth Day with all of you and congratulations for the great job you're doing. And now I would like to call out the main man, Tom Warner, to say a few words. (Applause)

MR. WERNER:

Well, I get to start with some really good stuff. Thank you, Governor. And we're thrilled to bring manufacturing back to California. Can you imagine being able to say that? And I would like to welcome you to SunPower's solar panel manufacturing facility, which is going to be here. And thank you to our Flex partners. (Applause)

And I should say it's our first in the United States and I suppose, now that I can feel his presence behind me, our first in California. It's also our 25th anniversary. Our founder, Dick Swanson and Bob Lorenzini founded the company 25 years ago. He started with a great idea for high-efficiency solar cells, which was actually to be a concentrator, high-efficiency solar cells for utilities. And that dream is coming true more than ever. It just took 25 years.

We manufacture and design the world's highest-power density solar system, the world's highest. And we're also the leading number one market share in California in commercial and residential systems, because people count on us for proven performance. If you buy a SunPower system you know it's going to work, because you can look at all the buildings and all the residential installations we already have that work. You also know that you're future-proof. You know the technology isn't going to be obsolete. After all, you put it on your roof. And you know there's a high return on your investment because you can look at those other customers and you can see the return that they have. I have a system on in my house; it's already paid for itself.

So we're bringing jobs back to California and Silicon Valley. We're investing here largely because of this gentleman and his staff. (Applause) Now, if you think about why would you locate a manufacturing facility here -- of course it has to work economically, of course you need a market. You're not going to manufacture here and ship to other parts of the world. This governor and his staff have absolutely delivered the things that it takes to have a great market here and to make the economics work.

Now, let me be specific. Remember his Million Solar Roof Initiative? It's a big deal and it's working. Last month was the biggest month every -- 50 megawatts of residential roofs were installed last month because of this governor.

Now you say, that's great. But this idea of when you put a solar system on your roof is that the meter turns backwards, it's called "net metering," and there's actually a cap on that. So it was legislated that the meters could only turn backward so much. We were going to hit that cap. I mentioned that to the Governor a few months ago and then it was really great. I went back to my office and went about my job and my assistant Debby said, "By the way, Governor Schwarzenegger is on the phone."

I said, "Governor who? Schwarzenegger who? It can't be." And he called me up to follow up on that point and then he had Mary Nichols call back. It's incredibly impressive, how he's taken what we needed and turned it into action.

Think of the RPS, 20 percent RPS. The United States leads the world. Now he's pushing to 33 percent and his staff told me yesterday that it's going to happen this year.

And AB 32. Please talk to you legislators. It's not a joke. Oil companies are coming in and saying, "Oh, renewable energy costs too much. Oh, they're incentivized, you need to go petroleum." So please call your legislator, tell him it's a bunch of bull. Tell him you support AB 32 and help it succeed this year.

So think of that framework that's been established for our company. We have great visibility in the market. The economics have improved and that is exactly why we're standing here today.

Now, a little bit more about SunPower. When I started in 2003 we had 35 employees and $6 million in revenue. Today we have over 5,000 employees and over $1.5 billion in revenue. Why is that? It's because of the people standing behind me and the people in the audience, because we have the best employees on the planet. (Applause)

And those people are here. We'll be adding 200 people to our R&D, Sales and Administrative teams in this area, both in San Jose and Point Richmond, on top of the investment we're making here. So we're committed to the long term because of great employees like those in this room.

I also want to thank other people, like the people at federal, state and local level and I'd like to expand on that a little bit. So first of all, the DOE. John Lushetsky is here somewhere. Where's John? John is right over there. (Applause) Now, think of all the things I'm going to mention here. So the Department of Energy awarded a Solar America Initiative to SunPower and they did that because we have the best technology on the planet. And what they said was, make an integrated end-to-end value, across the value chain, so that you can have an economic solution. And they funded us to do that and they said make a highly automated panel manufacturing line. That is what's going to be installed here, so thank you, John.

They also have a federal manufacturing tax credit. That made the economics work. And as I said, the Governor and the legislators -- many of them took credit for some of what I'm going to mention -- approved a green manufacturing equipment sales tax exemption. So when we buy equipment for this facility, the way it used to be is we'd actually get taxed for doing that. They got rid of that tax.

We're also going to the state agencies that are also responsible for distributing AARA funds, including low-investment loans, which we're going to utilize for the equipment. Special thanks to the city of Milpitas, which made this location possible and they made that happen two nights ago. And with the incentives that I mentioned from the state, that's why we're here.

Let me end with a point about investing in U.S. research and development. So three years ago, as I mentioned, we were awarded the Solar America R&D matching grant, where we invested and DOE matched that investment. The goal was to design the system, the assembly system that's going to be present here in a few months, that was designed specifically to have an end-to-end low-cost solution that you could manufacture in the United States. That was the original objective and it's coming true now.

We're going to be buying the equipment from Oregon, Colorado, Illinois, Pennsylvania. And there will be an extended supplier base all around this region that will be supporting this line, because this is a unique manufacturing assembly line, so it will require many new suppliers.

So I'd like to thank the DOE for their fantastic support over the last three years. And it's happened and you're going to be able to see it in a few months. And we're going to make, collectively -- Flextronics, the SunPower employees -- we're going to make the best damn solar systems on the planet right here. Thank you. (Applause)

I have to end with a quick note. So the Governor has an advance team and the advance team, of course, talks to the speakers and I was told that if you're to -- the Governor guided them -- "If you're going to speak for more than two or three minutes he's instructed me to randomly pull pages out of your talk." (Laughter) And so somehow I got away with a bit more than two or three minutes.

Anyway, I'd like to introduce our new partner, president of Flextronics, E.C. Sykes. (Applause)

MR. SYKES:

This is an exciting day for Flextronics, so on behalf of Flextronics I'd like to welcome all of you but also I'd specifically like to welcome you, Governor Schwarzenegger. Thank you so much for coming to visit us here.

You each spoke about technology. From time to time, technology needs a little push to get it to the next level and if it doesn't get that push it may die or maybe it's slow to get there. And I just wanted to take the time to kind of thank you and the people of California that have been supportive of the initiatives that it took to push solar to get it to the next level. Those pushes of help today bring together what we have in this event and it's a nice, it's an exciting activity for us and we're just really pleased to be a part of that.

Victoria Bradshaw, Secretary, we are pleased to have you here. This facility will actually be the one that we employ those additional people at and so this is kind of symbolic that we gather in this building today. If you come back in a couple of quarters you'll actually get a chance to see solar manufacturing sales being produced here, so we'd like to welcome you at that point in time to come back and visit us at that point.

GOVERNOR SCHWARZENEGGER:

We'll be back. (Laughter, applause)

MR. SYKES:

He did that very well, didn't he? (Laughter)

GOVERNOR SCHWARZENEGGER:

You asked for it.

MR. SYKES:

Currently we employ about 2,000 people in this region and about 2,700 in the state of California. It's a real privilege and our interest is to continue to grow that employment level here and so we're excited to have this piece to continue that growth trend here.

Mayor Livengood, we thank you and the city for the partnership that we've had over the last 20 years. We've continued to work together in a very cooperative way to continue to grow our employment base here. It's exciting to have partners, as you and your council members have been and particularly the speed that you moved in this situation to bring this day together.

And of course, SunPower, it's great to have as a partner of ours. We're excited to be able to manufacture your product here. The company has had a fantastic history, something that you've got to be very, very proud of. Thank you for that.

You know, at Flextronics, we started this journey of clean tech about four years ago, no idea it would end up in an event like today's event. And for us, not only is it is a chance for us to manufacture things like solar cells but we've also partnered with other companies in the area that make solar inverters, we've partnered with companies that make smart meters, we've partnered with companies that make LED light bulbs. We've done a number of different things -- wind -- to continue to help the renewable energy effort to move forward, both here in the United States and other places.

It's exciting for us just to be a part of the chain of events that's kind of brought these things together. It takes a lot of new, innovative technologies and companies like SunPower to bring that together. And then you kind of helped on the part of the manufacturing piece, where we get a chance to manufacture these products for them and then to deploy it out into the areas like the United States. This is exciting for us. Thank you for coming to share this excitement with us today as we celebrate.

Now I'd like to turn this over to a questions and answers time. Governor?

GOVERNOR SCHWARZENEGGER:

Thank you. (Applause) You know, many times we have this question and answer especially for the press because maybe we didn't explain enough, or we didn't say enough about the subject. I think we did. (Laughter) I think everyone understands that we are very enthusiastic about solar and about renewable energy.

And I think that, may I add, that I will do everything that I can, while I'm in office and even after I'm finished with this job, to fight for the environment and to fight for alternative fuels and to fight for solar and renewables and all of those kind of things, because this is like -- it's like working out. Just because you stop competing doesn't mean that you stop working out. And this is the same with this one. Just because I'm not governor anymore, I'm not going to throw the whole thing aside and say OK, I'm going to pay attention now to something else. No, this will be a focus of my attention. I just want you to know.

So we're going to go and work together for many more years to come, because it's all about follow through. You know, what they teach you in sports, when you do the golf, follow through. In tennis it's about follow through. In skiing it's about follow through, making the turns and finishing your turns. And the same is also with this. I get a lot of my lessons from sports because you can really learn some really good lessons. So it's all about follow through, so we're going to follow through.

So if there is any question than anyone has back there, please feel free. Thank you. I think everyone got it. (Laughter) Have a good time. There is one back there. Do we have a microphone or something? Yeah.

QUESTIONS/ANSWERS:

QUESTION: Yes, my name is Don Fernandez, I'm with CBS-5. A little late getting here. Can you talk again about the struggle with the oil industry and how important this is to the future?

GOVERNOR: Yes. I'm glad that you got here, even an hour late. (Laughter) We understand, we have to build more infrastructure and transportation so we don't get caught up in the traffic.

What I said earlier was that we have, as we implement those laws and as we pass laws and as we become great leaders in the world in protecting the environment and in reducing our greenhouse gases, we at the same time have to concentrate on protecting those laws, because when you have them in place it doesn't mean that should take it for granted that they'll stay there forever.

There are companies, like for instance we just have seen recently that Texan oil companies come into California and they start spending millions and millions of dollars to go and to reverse our laws and take them out, because they think not about the environment or about California or about the world environment, about reducing greenhouse gases. They think about their profits. They are a lot of times greedy oil companies from out of state that spend this money and put this money in.

And so we collectively all have to fight and push them back. And I have said this in 2003 when I ran for governor, that if the special interests push me around I will push back and that's exactly what we're going to do. We're going to push back and we're going to go and keep our great environmental laws in place.

Thank you very much. Thank you all. (Applause)

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