Peter Sperling, the son of John Sperling, an Arizona billionaire and founder of the University of Phoenix, contributed another $2.5 million this week to push for a ballot measure to expand renewable energy production in California, bringing his total giving to $5.5 million.
Sperling is the biggest donor to the Yes on Proposition 7 campaign, which qualified for the November ballot largely on the strength of the Arizonan's wallet.
The measure would require the state's utility companies to generate at least half of their power from renewable resources, such as wind and solar, by 2025. Under current law, utilities must produce 20 percent of energy from renewables by 2010.
The Proposition 7 campaign could well be the most expensive on the ballot, with the billionaire Sperlings on one side and the deep-pocketed utility companies, such as PG&E and Southern California Edison, on the other.
Those two companies have already deposited more than $27 million to defeat the measure.
Read more about the utilities' opposition and the environmental groups siding with them in this Capitol Alert story from July.
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