Law and Billing Disorder
How the latest and most significant change to many Californians' electric bills was snuck under everybody's noses and into law.
“California is infamous for passing things and then waking up and saying, 'What the hell did we just pass?’”
I. There Oughta be a Law
That’s the language used by several of my former legislative representatives in both chambers of the California Legislature. There Oughta be a Law is a phrase constantly used figuratively by these individuals when coming up with their own laws but also literally by some such as Assembly District 77’s Tasha Boerner and Assembly District 17’s Matt Haney as portals to solicit ideas for potential new laws by their constituents. Government is supposed to be for the people, by the people so such portals, which often specifically indicate they are to solicit potential idea for laws from only constituents honestly serve towards that goal.
Most laws start with someone, whether an individual, or some organization’s idea. The lawmaker then forwards that idea to the Legislative Council’s Office (LCO), a non-partisan state agency which provides both legal expertise but also first drafts language for a bill. This is where something turns from “there oughta be a law saying bicyclists should be allowed to treat stop signs as yield signs” to the actual legal language and edits to the relevant part of law (in this case the CA Vehicle Code) where the existing law is modified, stuck out or removed.
Now the idea is a bill, it’s assigned a number, AB 123 if it came from an Assemblymember or SB 123 if it came from a State Senator. The bill is then read in front of the appropriate chamber and then assigned to a Policy Committee whose members are theoretically supposed to have interest or expertise in that committee’s focus. For bills with impact on the state’s budget, the bill is also sent to the Appropriations Committee in the originating chamber. Many bills are sent to both their relevant Policy Committee and the Appropriations Committee.
In the case of the “stop sign” bill mentioned above, that bill was assigned to the Assembly’s Transportation Committee, one of several Policy Committees and the Appropriations Committee as the bill, if passed, somewhere impacted the state’s budget - likely something having to due with the California Highway Patrol. The appropriate Committee members read the bill, often suggest changes to amendments, and then it’s sent back to the chamber to be read again. This can go back and forth two more times and if it’s approved by both the Chamber and Committee members then it’s sent to the other Legislative Chamber to be heard there where this back and forth process between the main chamber and the appropriate Committee is done again. For this third reading to go on in either chamber requires a certain number of votes and depends on what kind of bill it is. Most “regular” bills require at least 51% (21 of 40) Senate Votes or 52% (41 out of 80) Assemblymember votes to go on while urgency measures and appropriation bills require 2/3 approval in either chamber.
Bills that make it though all this are then sent to the Governor’s desk for either signature, or a veto. That deadline to take action in any of these directions is 12 days. (In the case of the “stop sign bill,” it was vetoed by the Governor.) If the bill has not been signed into law or vetoed after 12 days, it is considered approved without signing, and becomes law.Signatures tend to get attention from both the lawmakers associated with the bill, the Governor if it aligns with his political positions, and those in support including Corporate Press propagandists such as the LA Times and SF Chronicle who often serve as Newsom’s and the greater CA Feudal Regime’s Prvda. Vetos get similar attention, often at a fraction, unless its a rare issue to which the previous entities do not see eye to eye and decide to pout while approvals without signing are a mere rounding error in the spotlight of attention. With some exceptions (spoiler alert: budget bills) governor-signed bills or approval without signature bills become law on January 1st of the following year. There are also different rules whenever the Governor calls for a Special Session, but that’s out of the scope for this piece.
Minus the delusion of a functioning democratic system California attempts to portray (elections are a whole other enchilada) each state runs more or less the same lawmaking process with minor caveats and meet on different lengths and frequencies. A single California’s legislative cycle lasts for two years and has two Regular Sessions. The first Regular Session (simply session from here on out) begins the first Monday in December after the last election (this is when new members are sworn in), although the real lawmaking process typically doesn’t start until after the new year. That session typically ends at the end of August. On non-election (odd-numbered) years the body often finishes up by mid-September although in either year the California Constitution allows the body to meet up until the end of November. This difference in duration though between even and odd numbered years is supposed to split different priorities per session such as passing a budget and to account for the campaigning on election years.
Perhaps the most important part of this regular process is that the public, as in the people, provided they pay attention, have plenty of time to reach out to lawmakers during the process and a few days to reach out to the governor to indicate their support or lack of support for a bill.
II. Follow The Money (Terms and Conditions Apply)
“When you have a good idea, the money flows.”
-Gavin Newsom
The State Legislature are not only responsible for lawmaking in the sense of what people can or cannot do but they’re also responsible for drafting the law the State itself will follow on how and where it spends its your money. In other words, this is the State Budget. The California Constitution requires the budget be balanced but the budget also often and ideally reflects the vision of the Governor, his party, and is laid out the annual State of the State Address.
In California, the fiscal year starts on July 1st and ends June 30th. The state gets money from the Federal Government, bonds, and taxes. These monies are poured into the state’s coffers at different times, an obvious one being the April 15th deadline for most state individual and corporate income taxes. The Governor proposes the annual budget for the upcoming year on January 10th, giving the legislature less than six months to get said budget on his desk for signature. Depending on one’s view, this misalignment in dates can be viewed as either a feature to introduce additional checks and balances or a bug to throw a wrench into the machine that is the State Government.
With this mismatch of dates and the urgency, there is a bit of a workaround with bills, or often the bill that defines the State Budget which once passed goes into effect starting the next fiscal year, not next calendar year. The legislature has until June 15th of each year to pass a budget bill, which is often done with a single bill but with changes back and forth as the Governor has the ability to veto items line per line. Prior to the passing of Proposition 25 by voters in 2010, the budget required 2/3 vote in each chamber to pass but now requires just 51% making this process go faster but often at the expense of less scrutiny over items and less transparency with the citizens.
III. The Trail to the Bait and Switch
“If you're not open, you're not transparent, you're still holding on to vaults of information, you're not going to build that trust.”
-Gavin Newsom
Behind the budget bill are what are called budget trailer bills. The intent of budget trailer bills are to compliment the state budget bill by making changes to the relevant statutory law so that the budget, once passed, does not run into any legal or statutory issues. Members of both legislative chambers introduce them in early January. They have minimal text at first, meaning they can easily get by the LCO.
Here’s one for example, AB205, introduced by Assemblyman Phil Ting on 8th of January, 2021.
Contrast that to the first draft of the previously mentioned “stop sign bill,” AB 122, which contains specific modifications to CA state statute, in this case, the California Vehicle Code.
AB205, which for intents and purposes, appears to say no thing at all other than “It is the intent of the Legislature to enact statutory changes, relating to the Budget Act of 2021.” That’s lawmaker speak for budget trailer bill.
AB205 was read for the first time to the Assembly on the 11th, referred to the Assembly’s Budget Committee and amended on the 18th.
Minor procedural details aside the bill made its way out of the Assembly with a second and third hearing and onto the Senate on February 25th.
In the Senate’s court, AB205 didn’t see any action for months. The next revision to the bill wouldn’t happen until June 26th and it was by that time the Senate thousands upon thousands of bill legalese.
The thousands of words proposed changes to the California Government Code which contains statutes that govern the organization and operation of the state government, state officials, and public employees. The bill also proposed changes to Public Resources Code which covers laws related to natural resources, environmental protection, and land use planning. And it proposed changes to the Public Utilities Code which regulates public utilities, including telecommunications, electricity, water, and transportation. That’s of course not all, the Revenue and Taxation Code which details the laws on taxation in the state, including property taxes, state income taxes, and sales taxes received the red pen; as did the Water Code which governs water rights and water quality in California, addressing the use and distribution of water resources.
At the end the following clause was added: “This act is a bill providing for appropriations related to the Budget Bill within the meaning of subdivision (e) of Section 12 of Article IV of the California Constitution, has been identified as related to the budget in the Budget Bill, and shall take effect immediately.”
This is still, big picture, business as usual, for a budget trailer bill but there are major devils in the details and word was added to the end of the title for AB205: Energy.
Below is just a fraction of the revisions.
Things get especially interesting with Section 10, which amends the California Public Utilities Code. The profound meaning of this text will be explained later.
AB205 passed the Senate on the 29th and then on the same day it also passed the Assembly.
Section 10 read as follows:
IV. The People of the State of California do Enact as Follows…..?
I made bad decisions. That being said - the question is, does the public care about that?
-Gavin Newsom
On June 30th, AB205 as well as two separate main budget bills and over 25 other budget trailer bills were signed by Newsom.
His office released a long press release laced with virtue signaling culture war themed goddeldygook.
When the Governor signs a bill into law or vetoes on, it’s common for him, or more likely his handlers, to write a letter addressing the Legislature explaining the rationale.
AB205 was the one and only bill the Governor addressed.
Missing from both of these pieces or propaganda are details pertaining to Section 10 in the bill.
Months later, a more clear interpretation of Section 10 trickled into news, first with press releases from the three major Investor-Owned Utilities (IOUS) in California in the Spring of 2023.
Steven Powell, the CEO of Southern California Edison, the IOU who serves much of Southern and Eastern California said in an April 2023 press release, “We understand that our customers are dealing with rising costs of all kinds and are working to keep customers’ bills as manageable as possible. SCE believes an income-based fixed charge will provide benefits to millions of customers, particularly those most in need of energy bill relief. It will also make it easier for more Californians to afford clean energy technologies.”
The release itself, coupled with a fancy graphic directly, cited AB205, writing:
“Because of a recently passed state law (Assembly bill 205), the commission is holding a proceeding to implement a fixed charge on electric bills, based on a household’s income level. This means that customers from lower-income households would pay a lower fixed charge than those from higher-income households.”
At the same time also came a press release from Pacific Gas and Electric, who likely needs no introduction as the beleaguered Northern California IOU. The rhetoric was similar to SCE’s ; “fixed rate,” “lower bills,” and reassuring readers, “these are not new charges, but a restructuring of the components of providing and delivering power.” One of PG&E’s uppers, this time Marlene Santos, Executive Vice President of Customer and Communications and Chief Customer Officer chimed in as well with:
“As California rapidly advances to a future of electrification, this proposal will help to limit the impact on disadvantaged communities, as Californians transition to electrification in support of the state’s clean energy goals.”
Fresh off rebranding their logo from an abstract humanoid figure holding a torch (ewwww fossil fuels!) to a fresh green “energy globe” which “reflects our values and our goals, our passion and purpose,” was San Diego Gas and Electric.
“SDG&E submitted the electric rate proposal in response to a new state law (AB 205) passed in 2022 requiring the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to adopt a fixed price – based on household income - to help fund electric delivery infrastructure such as poles, wires, meters and customer service,” explained a press release along with another upper executive’s statement.”
SDG&E CEO Caroline Winn also said:
“We have listened to and heard from our customers that fundamental change is needed to provide bill relief. When we were putting together the reform proposal, front and center in our mind were customers who live paycheck to paycheck, who struggle to pay for essentials such as, energy, housing and food.”
Towards the bottom, past a quote from a Chaplain of the United African American Ministerial Action Council (no joke), came an interesting ending statement.
A chorus of voices, including nonpartisan research organizations such as Next 10, energy experts such as UC Berkeley’s Severin Borenstein, and environmental groups such as the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) have called for this type of reform to make electricity more affordable and support the state’s clean energy transition.
SDG&E’s proposal would not result in the collection of more money from its residential customers overall and the utility would not earn more profit under this plan.
State law requires the CPUC to adopt a new electric rate structure no later than July 1, 2024.
Now to be clear, the three IOUs were not colluding in some smoke-filled room to do all this but instead since the passing of AB205, they had been mandated by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to propose the new rate structures.
Also came media coverage from Corporate Press rags such as the San Francisco Chronicle. In an April 2023 article, “Californians’ electricity bills could see huge change if PG&E proposal goes through.” the reporters the entire issue onto PG&E, who as noted above were responding to the legal changes thanks to AB205. Upon searching the SF Chronicle’s archive for any information pertaining to AB205, no coverage could be found after the Governor signed it and the budget into law in June 2022. The first mention of AB205 specifically came in an opinion piece “Why your utility bills could be about to skyrocket in California,” in October 2023. It took until May of this year for the “reporting” side of the paper to mention it.
The Los Angeles Times also failed to cover the law until much later, and by Los Angeles Times, it was a reporter from their subsidiary at the time, The San Diego Union Tribune, who actually covered it in April 2023. That piece noted some important details pertaining to the fixed rate.
The precise dollar amount and other details will be determined by the California Public Utilities Commission, with a final decision approved by mid-2024 and fully implemented in 2025.
Also noted:
As per commission instructions, all proposals must be composed of at least three income brackets.
SDG&E, PG&E and Edison turned in a joint submission. Here’s how their proposal would play out for customers:
*Households earning less than $28,000 a year would pay a fixed charge of $15 a month on their electric bills in Edison and PG&E territories and $24 a month in SDG&E territory.
*Households with annual income from $28,000 to $69,000 would pay $20 a month in Edison territory, $34 a month in SDG&E territory and $30 a month in PG&E territory.
*Households earning from $69,000 to $180,000 would pay $51 a month in Edison and PG&E territories and $73 a month in SDG&E territory.
*Those with incomes above $180,000 would pay $85 a month in Edison territory, $128 a month in SDG&E territory and $92 a month in PG&E territory.
Nationally and internationally, the fixed and income based electricity story caught attention too.
In early June of 2023, both the Washington Post (“If you live in California, your power bill will soon depend on your income”) and the Guardian (“Richer people pay more: California’s dramatic change to electricity bills”). The Washington Post were mostly silent on the bill other than this minor comment.
That’s where the new law, which passed last summer as part of a larger energy bill, comes in. First proposed by researchers at the University of California at Berkeley and the nonprofit Next 10, the plan would split utility costs into two buckets: Fixed charges, which everyone has to pay just to be connected to the grid, and variable charges, which depend on how much electricity you use. Proponents say that the creation of fixed charges would cover things like wildfire preparedness and grid updates — and would also lower electricity costs based on usage. In theory, that would make it easier to convince Californians to electrify.
The Guardian remarked, “last year, the state passed a law giving the California public utilities commission a 1 July 2024 deadline to determine a fixed charge for household electric bills based on people’s income.”
Something missing from this tsunami of media coverage was discussion on how the bill became law: the abuse of the budget trailer bills.
Also missing but not in the scope of this already long article is how to actually determine the income level of each ratepayer.
Apparently the CA Legislature believed at the time in placing the cart in front of the horse and did it with next to zero approval or knowledge by their constituents.
V. The Panic and Potential Reversal
“Government is the ultimate monopoly. And monopolies, as any economist will tell you, often breed complacency and a lack of innovation.”
-Gavin Newsom
That’s not to say some people figured out back in the Spring of 2023 what really happened. That’s still too late.
One was Dan Walters of the independent media outlet CalMatters in “Trailer bills: A sneaky way to make a big change in California law.” While not specifically mentioning AB205, he noted that California’s lawmakers developed a bad habit (first mentioning the issue back in 2021) of using budget trailer bills to subvert the regular lawmaking process. He also (correctly) said, “It can take weeks or even months for those outside the Capitol to figure out the real-life impacts and decipher the dense legalese of trailer bills, which often run hundreds of pages.”
Another was in an opinion piece for the Los Angeles Daily News. Writing in “California’s absurd energy policies,” Susan Shelley called out the abuse right away explaining in detail how the process works.
“Every year, the California Legislature passes blank bills.
Twenty, 30, even 40 pieces of blank legislation are introduced, each with a bill number, each completely empty of language except for a single line expressing the intent of the Legislature to fill them in later with something related to the budget.
These blank “budget” bills go through all the required legislative steps intended to enable thoughtful consideration and transparency and then they are brought to the floor, passed, and sent to the other house. It’s a pantomime.
The state’s entire budget process is mostly theater, because the real budget is negotiated behind closed doors by the governor and legislative leaders. That’s when backroom deals become “amendments” to the blank bills. These “budget trailer bills” nearly break the sound barrier as they fly through the Legislature and land on the governor’s desk, and by the time you find out what’s in them, it’s too late.
And that is how the state passed a law mandating electricity charges based on income.”
….
“The new state law is Assembly Bill 205. It was first introduced on Jan. 8, 2021, completely blank except for one 18-word sentence that read, “It is the intent of the Legislature to enact statutory changes related to the Budget Act of 2021.” About seven weeks later, the Assembly passed the blank bill by a vote of 56 to 18 and sent it to the Senate, where it sat quietly for more than a year.
On June 26, 2022, AB 205 was amended in the Senate. The “amendment” to the 18-word bill was 21,627 words long. It added new sections to the Government Code, the Public Resources Code, the Public Utilities Code, the Revenue and Taxation Code and the Water Code.
On June 27, AB 205 passed the Senate Budget and Fiscal Review Committee. On June 29 it was approved by the full Senate, 27 to 8. It was sent over to the Assembly the same day for “concurrence in Senate Amendments,” which it received by a vote of 64 to 13. The governor signed AB 205, now known as “the energy trailer bill,” on June 30. It took effect immediately.”
Walters came back in June of 2023 with “California Senate takes rare stand against misuse of budget ‘trailer bills’”
It was here he noticed the downstream effects of 2010’s Proposition 25.
Over the previous decade, after voters – perhaps unwittingly – reduced the legislative vote requirement for budgets from two-thirds to a simple majority, it had become common practice for governors and legislative leaders to put sweeping policy changes into trailer bills to make their passage easier.
Walters then revealed that during the 2023 budget process, it was none other than Gavin Newsom who wanted his political wish list to be shoved under the noses of Californians via budget trailer bills.
When Newsom unveiled a plan recently to make wide-ranging changes to the California Environmental Quality Act, he wanted it to be a package of trailer bills.
Now there’s something seriously wrong with something Newsom proposes when two of his biggest enablers push back.
Walters again:
The plan drew heat from environmental groups and when it received an initial airing in a Senate budget committee, members balked at giving it the fast-track treatment afforded to trailer bills, saying it needed greater scrutiny.
Later that fall, San Diego’s NPR affiliate KPBS in a multi-part series didn’t mention trailer bill or similar wording specifically but the author of the article seemed to have a grasp on what happened.
The KPBS reporter1 also found a goldmine of a quote from Ahmad Faruqui, an energy economist, purported to be familiar with how utilities set their rates2.
“This was put in at the last minute,” said Ahmad Faruqui, a California economist with a long professional background in utility rates. “Nobody even knew it was happening. It was not debated on the floor of the assembly where it was supposedly passed. Of course, the governor signed it.”
Faruqui wonders who was responsible for legislation that was added to the energy bill during the budget writing process. That process is not transparent.
“It’s a very small clause in a very long bill, which is mostly about other issues,” Faruqui said.
….
“They said the commission may consider or should consider,” Faruqui said. “They didn’t mandate it. It’s worth re-reading it.”
Fast forward to 2024 things are really changing. San Francisco’s darling Senator Scott Weiner, and Assemblywoman Jacqui Irwin along with eight other lawmakers caught on to the utter ridiculousness of AB205.
Weiner’s press release cuts to the matter.
“In 2022, the Legislature passed AB 205, which required the CPUC to move the state to an income-based system of paying utility bills, known as an income graduated fixed charge. Under this system, all customers pay a fixed charge set by their income to cover the costs of building and maintaining electrical infrastructure, plus a smaller additional amount to account for the energy they actually use.”
The lawmakers are pushing on the CPUC to “come up with a better proposal” amid the fact they “to date, the CPUC has held no public hearings on this proposal.” Weiner and company are even waking up to the fact such changes would make California’s electricity rates (at least in IOU territories) even more expensive than they already are. They cut into the fact that state subsidies to the poor such as CARE and FERA would not cover the new customers who could be unable to afford their bills. Against the grain of many of the propagandists initially in support of the idea, they further insist:
The proposed changes also threaten to undermine California’s progress toward our climate goals. There is no evidence that this untested rate structure will promote electrification, as data clearly show that customers respond most strongly to the total size of their electric bill, not small changes at the margin. By removing the opportunity for large savings through major reductions in energy use, the proposed plan would undermine the incentive for customers to cut their electricity usage.
Weiner’s office apparently lack basic copy editing skills - there are no dates on these press releases and they failed to provide an actual link to the letter to the CPUC making it impossible to figure out who the other lawmakers are. Seldom to not boast of his “achievements” on X, Weiner didn’t even mention this ordeal on his X account either.
In another letter, Assemblywoman Addis joined the choir in a letter signed by Assemblymembers Bauer-Kahan, Connolly, Pellerin, Muratsuchi and yes, Senator Wiener:
Alice Busching Reynolds, President
California Public Utilities Commission
505 Van Ness Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94102Dear President Reynolds:
We are writing to urge the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to reject the Proposed Decision on Application 23-06-008, which would grant Pacific Gas and Electric Company's (PG&E) request for interim rate relief and allow them to recover an additional $516 million from ratepayers.
In November, the CPUC approved PG&E's 2023-2026 General Rate Case (GRC), which allowed the utility to begin charging 13% more for power at the beginning of this year. This is expected to cost the average family $34.50 more per month, or $414 more per year. Combined with the increasing cost of living in the state, many California ratepayers are struggling to afford this additional burden on their monthly budget.
Now, only a few months later, PG&E is seeking to recover millions more from taxpayers by raising rates once again. If the proposed decision is approved, electric bills are expected to increase an additional $15 per month for the average customer. On top of these requests, PG&E is expected to seek to increase rates even further in the coming months, with more requests to recover costs from ratepayers pending before the commission.
This situation is untenable for many of PG&E's residential customers, who have seen rates balloon by over 80% over the last three years, making PG&E the most expensive power provider in the state. Although some of the utility's lowest-income customers may be able to access discounts, skyrocketing rates have made electric bills burdensome for customers of all income brackets, including middle class customers who will receive no rate relief.
PG&E's move to recover millions more dollars from ratepayers is particularly troubling in light of the fact that the utility recently announced $2.2 billion in profits in 2023, an increase of nearly 25% from 2022. The company also resumed issuing stockholder dividends this year.
California ratepayers are already grappling with some of the highest electricity rates in the nation. It is unconscionable for PG&E to place this additional burden on their ratepayers when they are touting billions of dollars in profits and issuing dividends that will line the pockets of their shareholders. PG&E shareholders should not be making a profit at the expense of hardworking Californians.
As California's regulator of investor-owned utilities, it is imperative that the CPUC protect the interest of the state's consumers and ensure that electricity rates are affordable for all Californians. We therefore urge the commission to reject PG&E's unreasonable request to recover millions more dollars from ratepayers.
Sincerely,
DAWN ADDIS
Assemblymember, 30th DistrictAL MURATSUCHI
Assemblymember, 66th DistrictDAMON CONNOLLY
Assemblymember, 12th DistrictGAIL PELLERIN
Assemblymember, 28th DistrictSCOTT WIENER
Senator, 11th DistrictREBECCA BAUER-KAHAN
Assemblymember, 16th District
These two letters are facades. Everyone on that second letter above except Addis and Connolly voted for AB205.
Irwin’s take is especially vomit-inducing as she’s on record saying also saying, “AB 205 should have had a very robust conversation” and of the bill, “part of a huge trailer bill.”
Bullshit.
Assemblyman Al Muratsuchi is on record, per Ashley Zavala of utterly passing off his responsibility onto others.
"This is a crappy budget trailer bill that was dumped on us late Sunday." In the words of Marshawn Lynch, 'I'm only here so I don't get fined'."
The Orange County Register’s Jon Coupal dressed down these imbeciles in an excellent op-ed.
Trailer bills, which we have often criticized, are dense and rushed through in days or even hours at the end of legislative sessions. It would be understandable for ordinary citizens, even those who are well educated and informed, to miss a key detail buried within its fine print. But for our state legislators to assert that excuse doesn’t pass the smell test.
The reality is that they did know, or at least should have. It was not hidden in the fine print. It was the second bullet point of their own legislative analysis3. Here is what it said: “[…] The bill requires the fixed charge to be established on an income-graduated basis with no fewer than three income thresholds, such that a low-income ratepayer would realize lower average monthly bill without making any [changes] in usage, as specified.”
So, it is hard to believe that Assemblymembers Chris Ward, Marc Berman, Alex Lee, Sharon Quirk-Silva, Rebecca Bauer-Kahan, Phil Ting, Senator Scott Wiener, and the others who were huddled around Irwin did not know. That is especially true of Ting, as he was the Assembly budget chair at the time, and the bill was “authored” by his committee.
The change in tune from this group of mostly coastal Democrats appears attributable to the blowback they are receiving from their affluent constituents in an election year. Unfortunately, their new-found outrage over the legislation (again, that they voted for) is a lame attempt to secure political cover which is unlikely to result in any changes. In fact, Gov. Gavin Newsom said in response that “he looks forward to seeing a [California Public Utilities] Commission proposal that is consistent with AB 205 when it is released.”
So, what is the point? There are no repercussions for bad votes and bad bills when the Democrats have a supermajority, and few legislative districts are competitive. If they have the backing of the party and their major donors, they win. They answer only to themselves and special interests that could spend money against them. Placating those special-interest donors, not good governance, is their only real concern.
Where was Newsom in all of this? Nowhere. But his spokesman Alex Stack filled in, again per Zavala.
"The Governor is aware that the Public Utilities Commission is working diligently with dozens of stakeholders in its public decision-making process, and he looks forward to seeing a Commission proposal that is consistent with AB 205 when it is released. California must combat climate change by rapidly expanding the use of clean electricity in our vehicles and buildings, while at the same time making it more affordable for low-income Californians.”
VI. Drying Ink
When Californians see something we truly believe in, we say so and act accordingly - without evasiveness or equivocation.
-Gavin Newsom
As it turns out, things turn fast, and of course there cannot be a Green Leap Forward piece discussing the California energy circus without shitting on the Enemy of Regular Californians, The Los Angeles Times.
Less than a month ago, the LA Times Editorial Board in “Editorial: High electric bills threaten California’s clean future. This plan would help” praised the very proposed CPUC the idiot lawmakers above all the sudden decided to cry over. The Board asks after recognizing the fact California has some of the highest electricity rates in the country and climbing, “who wants to invest thousands of dollars in a heat pump or induction stove only to be punished with higher bills?”
The CPUC have been considering mandating the three IOUs charged a fixed rate of $24.00 per month instead of a charge per kilowatt hour of electricity. The Board insists, “it’s a well-thought-out approach to modernizing California’s electric rates that adheres to a 2022 law requiring the commission to adopt income-based fixed rates, and does so without any onerous new income verification program as had been proposed.”
What gets left out of the politicians, activists, corporate journalists, and apparently those even in the CPUC itself is that electricity is consumed the very moment it’s generated, and like any other service or commodity, there’s really no other way to properly bill for it but by charging per unit cost. In the same song of economic illiteracy that parasitized the brains of only familiar with fiat economics. Putting price controls and or subsidies distorts market signals.
They also push back on the three utilities, whining their original proposed fixed rates were too high, but in the same breath insist that state subsidies can alleviate lower income rate payers.
The Board even took a rare stance in demanding the very politicians they brown nose step down in their efforts to simmer down the CPUC’s new mandate. In reference to the pushback mentioned in the last section, they demand:
“Earlier this year a group of Democratic lawmakers introduced legislation to repeal the fixed-charge mandate, part of a sweeping energy bill passed in 2022. They should stand down, as the commission’s proposal is a reasonable compromise that rejects the utilities’ radically high proposals.”
(Notice the first LA Times link doesn’t even link to their own reporting on the issue.)
As it turns out, just this last week, the CPUC’s $24.00 fixed fee was approved with the income requirement dropped.
This time the “reporting side” of the LA Times opened their article with this astonishing factoid:
Ignoring hundreds of complaints by electricity customers from across the state, the California Public Utilities Commission voted unanimously Thursday to fundamentally change how electricity is billed by adding a new monthly fixed fee.
Later in the article they dropped a massive lie married to a truth.
Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed AB 205 as part of his budget on June 26, 2022. Lawmakers approved the bill and Newsom signed it in a few days with little public discussion.
Newsom didn’t propose a thing.
As it turns out in that link, it was only this month the LA Times “discovered” the truth about AB205.
The verdict is still ultimately out on whether this drastic change can really place a dent on either California’s excessive electricity bills. Innovation is something the state’s entrepreneurs, who are largely leaving the state, excel at, not the lawmakers, activists, and especially not the journalists.
The KPBS article also interviewed one of San Diego Gas and Electric’s Vice Presidents, Scott Crider who is slowly proving that company’s public facing entities are parasitized with nonsensical virtue signaling that belong in a clown show.
“This is really about taking our existing rates and really changing how electricity is priced for customers to make it simpler,” said Scott Crider, a vice president at SDG&E. “To make it more predictable. And to really create that savings for lower-income customers.”
…
“Moving away from fossil fuels and more electricity in our homes and vehicles, we really need to modernize the pricing structure to make sure we can address affordability for the state while helping meet the state’s very, very aggressive climate goals,” Crider said.
That same Ahmad Faruqui just within the past week posted on the form Energy Central about the populist backlash but he neglected to mention the bill itself, instead throwing all the shade on the utilities themselves.
Great piece and you were right. Makes me mad. 😡 Just another example of how corrupt things have gotten in Sacramento.
Observing from a distance: with electricity bills based purely on kilowatt hours used, the power companies lose money on net metering, because the marginal rate is way too high. Having a fixed hookup charge plus a lower rate for kilowatt hour used more accurately reflects costs to the utility.
Keeping the power lines hooked up to a home which is just powering a night light while the owners are on vacation is just as expensive to the power company keeping the power lines hooked up to a home which is running the air conditioner with the windows open. The fuel used in powering that air conditioning is much closer to the industrial marginal cost of electricity, not typical residential rates.
With net metering, you get a bunch of homes like the nightlight home on the grid.
On the other hand, breaking out the hookup charge from the energy use charge lowers the marginal cost of electricity. Crank up that AC. Sunk cost, baby!
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With all this written, I did not see any changes in marginal rates in your text above, but I did not read all that carefully. I don't live in California, so I'm too lazy to read the legaleze.