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CA Gov. Gavin Newsom Florida ad. (Photo: gov.ca.gov)
Gavinomics: CA’s Electricity Prices More than 2X National Average – Going Up 13% Again
Tone deaf Governor, legislators silent on massive PG&E rate hike
By Katy Grimes, November 21, 2023 4:01 pm
The California Utilities Commission just granted Pacific Gas and Electric a 13% rate hike – ostensibly to pay for under grounding power lines.
Because Gov. Gavin Newsom appoints the commissioners to the CPUC, this is “Gavinomics.” Expect the other utilities to hike the rates as well.
Until so much of California burned down in a succession of recent wildfires, most Californians assumed PG&E and other utilities were already under grounding power lines and maintaining their equipment. We certainly were always told our annual rate increases were necessary for infrastructure maintenance and repair.
Remember, it was only this April 2023 that Southern California Edison, Pacific Gas & Electric and San Diego Gas & Electric filed a proposal to install a fixed-rate electric bill system for those under the three largest power companies in the state, the Globe reported. A 2021 report from the University of California at Berkeley recommended that the state link California’s highest-in-the-nation electricity bills to customer incomes – ie. your ability to pay. The real plan is to create income-based utility billing. So hold that thought.
Residential electricity prices in California are already more than twice the national average.
We’ve already heard this tired, old one-hit-wonder – year after year, after year. PG&E et al come to the CPUC with an outlandish rate increase proposal. The play-haggle with CPUC Commissioners, and then POOF! The proposed rate increase gets cut in half, the CPUC pats itself on the back as if it has just gutted its own budget, ratepayers get stuck with higher and higher utility bills – more than double the national average of electricity rates – and PG&E gets more money for their shareholders… or to pay off lawsuits… which we were promised would not be paid by rate payers.
Frankly, the only way to assure ratepayers are not paying PG&E’s legal liabilities is to keep the rates the same – no new increases.
The CPUC’s Public Advocates Office found that PG&E’s residential electricity prices are more than double the national average. Customer rates went up 38% between January 2021 and September 2023.
The 13% rate hike amounts to an average of more than $32 per month next year per household.
For this latest increase, PG&E initially asked CPUC regulators to authorize rate increases by 26% so it could bury 2,100 miles of power lines in wildfire prone areas. Right.
Didn’t the courts already order PG&E to bury their power lines?
The Wall Street Journal reported in 2021:
“PG&E’s equipment has ignited more than 20 California wildfires within the past several years that have collectively killed more than 100 people and burned thousands of homes. Most of the fires were sparked when trees or branches touched the company’s wires.”
“PG&E is on criminal probation following a 2010 natural gas pipeline explosion that killed eight people in San Bruno, south of San Francisco. The company was convicted on felony charges of violating federal pipeline safety laws.
“A federal judge overseeing PG&E’s probation has for months been pressing the company to do more to manage the risks to its electric system and recently recommended it do more to address the threat of trees falling on its lines.
Let’s look at that 26% rate hike request – my PG&E bill in winter is often $455 and higher. Add to that the proposed 26% rate hike – $118.30 – and the bill jumps to $573.30. But I am supposed to be grateful that the rate hike will only be 13% – for the same service and energy delivery – only $59.15 more a month for a total of $514.15.
The CPUC’s Public Advocates Office also found Residential rate increases far exceed inflation.
Did you get a 13% pay raise from your employer? I love my employer, but I did not get a 13% pay raise.
Is it any wonder that around the state we are witnessing labor union strikes in nearly every industry – for higher pay and benefits. Their pay is also not keeping up with inflation – or PG&E’s rate increase.
As for the income-based utility billing, Currently, utility bills are based on electricity and gas consumption. The utility companies are now proposing income-based utility billing so that higher-income earners pay for more than they use, subsidizing the rates for lower income customers.
“From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs,” Karl Marx wrote in his Communist Manifesto. In a nutshell, Marx said productive, hard-working and successful people must sacrifice to less productive, and unproductive people.
The State of California, the California Legislature and California Gov. Gavin Newsom are punishing productive successful people. Again. And they are saying the quiet parts out loud.
Gavinomics isn’t interested in the fact that California is rich in natural resources, which once powered the state: natural gas deposits in the Monterey Shale formation; geothermal energy, abundant rivers and waterways such as the San Joaquin River Delta and hydroelectric dams; the Pacific coastline; 85 million acres of wildlands with 17 million of those used as commercial timberland; and mines and mineral resources.
Instead, the real goal of the radical environmentalists is to make electricity so expensive, homeowners will be forced to initiate self-blackouts of electric appliances during certain times of day, and electric car owners won’t be able to afford the high costs to keep them charged.
Environmentalists have no special love for electric cars – they just want everyone out of cars. So if they can make electricity so expensive that people can’t afford to drive electric cars, well then good.
And this is done by limiting energy sources rather than using an all-of-the-above approach to energy production in California: Oil, gas, coal, nuclear, hydroelectric, solar and wind.
If all we are allowed to use is renewable energy for electricity production – a deliberate energy shortage – statewide shortages and rolling blackouts inevitably become the new California normal, as are higher and higher rates – less supply, more demand = higher prices. We are being conditioned to accept this as normal by some very evil leaders. Think “Gavinomics.”
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Power lines in my area are being undergrounded after a huge forest fire set by an eco-terrorist. The cost has to be enormous. Maybe the cost will eventually be offset by savings from no longer having to remove trees near the power lines which is also an extremely costly endeavor that is repeated several times a year along each power line mile after mile.
City power in the foothills and mountains has always been a bad idea. That is what wood, diesel, and propane are for.
Gavinomics, no kidding. This is just WRONG, from beginning to end. It has become a cliche that we pay for governments mistakes, but this is beyond ridiculous. There will be no justice with what we have endured from PG&E, with Gruesome wink-winking as he punishes (rewards) them, that’s for sure. Which is only ONE of the many scams we’ve suffered under Gruesome and the rest of these relentlessly cruel Dem/Marxist jerks. Meanwhile, a commie income-based energy plan is in our future unless we scream bloody murder, which I hope we will.
Maybe this would be a good time to post the Sept 2023 Tucker interview — if you missed it — of newly-elected Argentine President Javier Milei for a palate-cleanser from our CA mess and some inspiration to take with you into the long Thanksgiving weekend.
“Who is Javier Milei?”
https://twitter.com/TuckerCarlson/status/1702442099814342725
I don’t know that any solution doesn’t include permanent removal of the current government. With safeguards in place to restrict one party rule. I get that “the people” voted this group in, but everyone must see that one party rule has proven that a one party system doesn’t work except in the eyes of the one party. So sad.
How about PGE natural gas here in Sacramento? October 2022 to October 2023 in my single family dingbat home, I paid $4900.
Bottom line: democrats do not spend on infrastructure, they spend on getting re elected. Since ancient wrongs are presumed to be correctable by appointing them to jobs the had no talent to do, California has been on a downward spiral ever since.
You have a gas leak. You had better check that out real fast. That’s an insanely high bill. Something’s wrong here. The leak is somewhere between the output of your gas meter, and the rest of your house. Do you smell gas in your yards anywhere? Something’s very wrong here.
If PG&E raises their rates 13%, I can cut my usage by 20%. Whatever PG&E does, I can do more. Everybody, this is what PG&E doesn’t want you to know. A ordinary (very cheap) computer UPS can be modified to create a totally complete mini solar system that can be plugged in anywhere. Renters, you can plug in one of these temporary mini solar systems without modifying any electrical equipment in your building. It can be setup in a few minutes, and eliminate a large chunk of your PG&E bill. Google “Using computer UPS as a solar inverter.”.
This is more fodder for Governor DeSantis in his upcoming debate against the narcissist.
The bottom line is that Noisome and his fellow travelers don’t want you to have power at all. Pricing it out of reach and creating artificial shortages are their primary weapons.
My Edison electrical bill also went up about 14% in the last year. My very thin Tier 1 went from $.28/kwh to $.32/kwh and Tier 2 went from $.36/kwh to $.41/kwh. I guess the Edison Intl. CEO salary of over $12,000,000 per year wasn’t enough. I also just learned that I may have to pay another fee on top of the rates depending on my income level. Nice.
Just another way to turn CA into a Communist state. They’re well on their way.
Another excellent story Katy. Thank you. It is hard to get Democrats out of power once they are in. They shovel out money to many different identity groups that collectively have the power to keep re-electing them. The Dems figured this out when they allowed public employees and teachers to unionize in the late 1970s. It has been downhill every since. But pocketbook politics may win out eventually. Even Dems run out of their own money and everyone else’s eventually.
Those of us who live in El Dor&Eado County despise PG&E. We, along with many of our neighbors, filed objections on the CPUC website which were overwhelmingly against ANY rate increase. PG&E could save a lot of ratepayer money if they’d: stop burning down huge sections of the foothills, paying for primetime commercials touting ‘their safety record (which no one can tell if they’re being ‘serious’ or are meant to be “ironical”- Robin Williams in Good Will Hunting), cut their ludicrous compensation package for their new CEO, and stop paying First Cuckueen Jennifer Siebel Newsom to produce puff piece documentaries (follow the $$$). I’d be willing to bet PG&E won’t underground a single electrical line in any of the ‘high prone’ fire areas in El Dorado County let alone extend gas service, which makes the fires they cause doubly dangerous with a 500gal. LPF shrapnel device adjoining most homes. If you want to read more on the twisted relationship between Newsom and PG&E, I would recommend the ABC10 series https://www.abc10.com/firepowermoney.