Sacramento, California (AP)-California legislators this week advanced several efforts aimed at redirecting utility profits and reducing electricity bills as part of their agenda to deal with the high cost of living.
Proposals would make extensive changes to the way utilities finance expensive infrastructure projects, such as the installation of power lines underground to protect themselves from wild fires. They would also add more supervision to the cost of mitigating fire and set new requirements for utility requests to increase the rates. Proponents said the goal was to make major utilities start to share some of the cost of combating wild fires and the construction of a new transmission infrastructure.
“This is not a set of modest countertops that will make small improvements at the ends of a problem without offending anyone,” said Democratic Senator Josh Becker, author of the bill. “This is a big deal.”
One of the bills is part of the state senate package to deal with the affordability of the background of increasing concern for the high cost of everything from gas to groceries. Democratic governor Gavin Newo signed an executive order last year, calling for legislators to do something to deal with jumping rates of electricity, which increased on average by 47% for housing clients between 2019 and 2023, according to the lawless analyst service.
But the Republicans who are in the minority in both chambers say that Democrats are not meaningful in high prices. They do not support energy reform bills, saying that this would not reduce costs and unsuccessfully tried to force a vote to restrict utility services by raising energy rates above the degree of inflation.
Speed
Increasing the rate of usefulness in recent years has been approved by state regulators in part to help utility utilities bury power lines aimed at stopping fires. Some of the most deadly and most destructive fires in recent years have been caused by the power line. Pacific Gas & Electric, whose equipment sparked a wild fire in 2018, which killed 85 people in 2024, raised its prices six times to help cover the cost of placing underground power lines and other improvement projects.
While each of every five payers cannot pay their energy bills, utilities such as PG & E, which are confronted with record profits last year, according to the Network for Communal Services Reform, a fee advocacy group. The group supports Becker’s measure and sponsors such efforts in the Assembly.
“There are no restrictions on how much utility services can ask for an increase in the rate. There are no restrictions on how many times a year they can ask,” says Mark Tony, CEO of the group. “You can’t blame them for wanting heaven.”
According to Becker’s proposal, utilities will be needed to use public funding to finance the first $ 15 billion spent on capital investment projects. The option would allow utility services to have access to funding with lower interest rates, and utilities would also be banned from collecting the return of this investment for shareholders. This will save customers $ 8.8 billion over the next 10 years, Becker said.
The bill will also set up a State Fund for restoring utilities for wild fire projects, among other things. But the state may have no money to pay for it this year.
The bill will also increase the supervision of utility budgets and their fire costs. Utilities will have to include at least one proposal to increase interest rates, which does not exceed the degree of inflation in their requests. The proposal also requires $ 60 billion loans to apply to bills over the years during the summer months, when use is often in its peak.
Republican opposition, utilities
The Senate Democrats predominantly refined Becker’s measure this week. But the Republicans, the utility services and the Chamber of Commerce in California said it would increase only more costs. The legislation “moves today’s expenses for utilities without eliminating them,” the letter said in an opposition letter. New regulations about increasing the rate and return on shareholders can also stop investments in utility services to prevent wild fires or increase the network, the letter said.
Republican state senators have said that increasing power bills are caused by Democrats’ policies and are pushing for more electric vehicles and less relying on fossil fuels. Meanwhile, in the Assembly, Republicans have called for the resolution of reforms to make it more faster and cheaper to build better infrastructure of utilities.
“The regulation regime we have in this country is depressing and definitely managing prices,” says Senator Roger Nilo, a Republican. “Your package of affordable prices is quite modest in number, but it is even more tricky in its potential impact.”
Legislators have also advanced other measures aimed at providing paid paid, including one that would ban utilities from using lobbying tariffs and one that will allow California to join a regional energy market with other Western countries to help increase network reliability.