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Economy, Energy, Politics

Your PG&E rates are about to spike again. California pols have three ways to stem the bleeding

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By Mark Toney : sfchronicle – excerpt (audio)

PG&E claims its rates are stabilizing. The numbers say otherwise.

According to an independent assessment by the California Public Utilities Commission’s Public Advocates Office, the state’s advocate for ratepayers, the average PG&E customer could pay $840 more annually by 2030, on top of the 69% rate increase during the past decade.

As California lawmakers and Gov. Gavin Newsom consider key electricity affordability legislation, including utility wildfire liability reform, state leaders should look beyond PG&E’s claims of rate stabilization and focus on the actual costs California residents and businesses are expected to pay.

PG&E is seeking to charge California ratepayers billions for outstanding costs, which will soon show up on our electricity bills. The utility has also requested and is expected to collect on several additional pending proposals to raise rates over the coming years and has $1.05 billion sitting in memorandum accounts that will be billed to ratepayers. This includes billions of dollars for wildfire mitigation, grid upgrades and other investments — as well as the hefty profit margins the utility is allowed to collect.

Some of these investments are necessary. Yet the independent Public Advocates Office found that PG&E has a pattern of chronic overspending.

Unless legislators and Newsom act, there is no end in sight.

Three bills before the Legislature in August could make a substantial difference in protecting your wallet…

  1. Senate Bill 905 from state Sen. Josh Becker, D-Menlo Park, would stop rewarding utilities for overspending on infrastructure.
  2. SB1098 from state Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez, D-Alhambra (Los Angeles County), would restore transparency to the rate-setting process.
  3.  SB886 from state Sen. Steve Padilla, D-Chula Vista (San Diego County), would ensure the artificial intelligence economy pays its own way… (more) 

Mark Toney is executive director of The Utility Reform Network…More on PG&E rates

Energy, Politics

SENATE ENERGY COMMITTEE BLOCKS PG&E BREAKUP BILL

By Megan Stephens : davisvanguard – excerpt

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. — Sen. Scott Wiener’s effort to give cities like San Francisco a clearer path to cut ties with PG&E stalled this week after the Senate Energy, Utilities and Communications Committee failed to advance SB 875, legislation aimed at reforming the state process for creating local public utilities.

SB 875 would have sought to unrig what supporters described as a broken California Public Utilities Commission process that prevents cities like San Francisco from leaving PG&E and forming their own public utilities. The bill was the first of its kind to pass even one committee. It aimed to reform procedures at the California Public Utilities Commission to allow cities that wish to exit PG&E to establish their own public utilities while providing more affordable and reliable energy to residents…

In 2019, San Francisco began trying to exit PG&E, but in the years since, it has faced repeated delays at the CPUC due to what supporters called a broken process rigged by private utilities, especially PG&E. The current valuation proceeding was filed with the CPUC in July 2021. Even with a strict 180-day timeline required by law, PG&E has successfully drawn the CPUC process out to more than four and a half years… (more)