In a couple of weeks, California's Public Utilities Commission will vote on whether or not to adopt a new fixed charge for electricity, one that will likely be based on income.
That's not including whatever the utilities charge for actual usage of electricity.
Most utilities across the country already collect fixed charges.
Cutting the rate for usage does make sense given that California already has the highest electricity rates in the contiguous US. A former head of the Public Utilities Commission says rates are so high because the PUC is not doing its job.
How did we get into this predicament? Because the California Public Utilities Commission - the five-member agency appointed by Gov. Gavin Newsom that regulates the prices, service and reliability of private energy utilities - has failed to do its job... Fixed fees are the start, not the end, of more rate increases because the commission doesn't prohibit the fixed charge from increasing whenever PG&E wants.
The plan lacks safeguards against utility double-dipping, so it will be hard to tell whether the costs embedded in this new fixed charge are duplicated in other cost-recovery requests... The Public Utilities Commission's rubberstamping of unproven, unwarranted, unjust electricity costs must stop.
Some version of the fixed fee will get adopted next month and then a year or so from now, the utilities will increase that fee, more than offsetting whatever change is made to the cost per kilowatt hour.
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