At Solar Power International in Anaheim, California (Oct. 27-29), Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) president and CEO Rhone Resch outlined the Solar Bill of Rights, a list of eight rights Americans should demand if solar energy is ever to compete on the same playing field as fossil-fuel generation.

The Bill of Rights, which you can sign to insure these rights are met in a timely fashion, will also provide an opportunity for consumers focused on clean energy to choose the energy source they prefer if the world is to avoid catastrophic climate change.

You can follow Resch on Twitter, and read and sign the Bill yourself. The most amazing thing about the Bill is that it aims not so much at advancing solar companies but the customers who make them possible – a paradigm that should be held up to business in general. After all, business expands or fails on consumer commitment, with consumers driving more than 70 percent of national economic activity, including expansion and recovery, according to the U.S. Commerce Department.

So what is the Solar Bill of Rights? It says, first, that Americans have the right to put solar on their homes and businesses – a right often abridged by everything from homeowner’s associations to city building inspectors and utilities, who make it difficult if not impossible to get permits and link said system to the electrical grid.

Secondly, it says the Americans have the right to connect their solar system to the grid via uniform national standards. This means that the same permitting process will apply from Anaheim to Alabama, with permitting fees also potentially coming into parity with one another. Nowadays, a solar permit might cost $1,000 in San Diego County, but nothing in Madison, Wisconsin, where S.B. 185 provides free permitting under “reasonable” land use provisions. As the Bill says, connecting a home solar system shouldn’t be any more onerous than setting up an Internet connection.

The bill also promotes national net metering, at a set standard, because it is to the benefit of utilities to accept the electricity generated when homeowners are at work and not using it during the middle of the day. This should be an obvious win-win, yet some utilities continue to balk.

The bill also promotes a fair environment for solar, which can’t possibly weigh in against the heavily subsidized fossil-fuel generation portion of the energy industry. Resch, and the bill, rightly want solar evaluated against coal, for example, based on their complete life-cycle costs and benefits – a race that coal will surely lose if cap-and-trade is implemented fairly.

Solar has a right to equal access to public lands. That means if the oil and gas industries are routinely given access to 45 million acres of public (government-owned) land per year, solar should have the same amount of access at the same costs.

Lastly (and neglecting points 6 and 7, because you can and should read the bill yourself), consumers have the right to ethical treatment at the hands of the solar industry. This means that consumers should expect clear communication from the solar industry regarding costs, performance and subsidies, and that solar system warranties should be honored even if the company changes hands. Companies should also be completely transparent regarding dangerous materials used in solar panel production, and methods for recycling panels at the end of their lifetime.

Even if you already have a solar system, and it is performing as well as (or better than) the solar company promised, you should sign this bill. Keeping the solar industry lean, “green” and clean in all aspects is the best way to insure its success.