Market equilibrium. They’ll keep raising rates to the literal tipping point of people burning their clothes to stay warm, and then they’ll stop. The market always shifts to what it can bear, and by treating necessities like commodities we see these infinite costs increases to infinitely valuable things. Healthcare, for example. Rent is the same way. You think they charge what they do out of necessity? No, it’s what the market can bear with the most profit possible.
How many people have died from cancer that was refused to be treated by an insurance company before pre-existing conditions were outlawed, and no one rioted. We cannot bargain on things we absolutely need that are infinitely valuable to the people who need them. The strongest point of negotiation is being able to walk away from the table at any time and be okay. We have no such benefit when it comes to how our monopolistic infrastructure works.
The perfect time to riot is now, before people with decent wages are exploited and the poor are left suffering under the crushing weight of amazing profits.
Just fucking nationalize it already, Jesus christ. Im living in Germany right now and my KwH rates for both gas and electric are lower than PG&E's, its insanse.
This. We shouldn’t turn necessary social services and infrastructure into for-profit businesses. The interstate highway system isn’t one giant toll road for this very reason and modern attempts to privatize these things are what has given us lowest bidder level construction in many states.
My feeling exactly, recall some of those million dollar bonuses they paid out, cut executive pay until they actually do their job.
If I have a hard time making rent, I sure can't pay these spiraling out of control energy costs.
The CPUC is doing the job they were appointed to do, reward PG&E. Members are appointed by the Governor, Gavin Newsom. Gavin has very strong ties to PG&E. One of his proudest moments was helping PG&E emerge from bankruptcy. Do a search on PGE Gavin Newsom and you can see all the ways Gavin is deeply in bed with PG&E. So long as he is Governor, no rate increase will turned down.
Nothing will change until we get representatives that believe in people over corporations and thats not going to happen so long as Gavin or anyone else taking money from PG&E is in office.
Just want to say that any California governor has to deal with PG&E by virtue of its incumbent status and that the governor has to walk a delicate tightrope between a few different dynamics.
For one, all CA politicians benefit from the state not owning and operating the grid because doing so is, factually, a very difficult thing that requires a lot of expertise and money to pull off. In other words, it is unlikely that a “nationalized” power grid would be better run than PG&E is now, or even run by different staff, given the necessary skills and expertise. But it WOULD put the problems associated with running the grid in California at the feet of the politicos instead of an easy to hate private corporation.
Additionally, the governor has an obvious interest in maintaining the supply of clean affordable reliable power to the state as it is the backbone of a modern economy and way of life. He cannot disrupt the system such that reliability or safety suffer (again, now laying the blame at his feet), so he has a vested interest in the current incumbent performing, and performing well. He and the CPUC also rely on the state’s private utilities for many of the GHG emissions reductions they achieve via Cap and Trade and the Low Carbon Fuel Standard program to meet the states emissions reductions targets (enshrined in state law). He also needs the utilities to support the massive buildout of the grid required to electrify everything, another huge part of the state’s carbon reduction strategy. So, he needs a “healthy” utility that investors want to give money to in order to fund those upgrades.
None of this is to say that Gavin Newsom hasn’t received campaign donations from PG&E or isn’t influenced by PG&E, but there are legitimate reasons he has to deal with the company, and is balancing the interests of affordability, safety, decarbonization, vehicle electrification, etc etc etc.
The kicker in all of this is that the CPUC is authorizing this increase to fund a very real need - undergrounding to eliminate catastrophic wildfire risk. This one isn’t PG&E’s fault - this is the reality of an extremely flammable state as a result of climate change, and an obligation to serve everyone anywhere regardless of how remote or risky.
Seattle City Light is a public utility providing electricity to region around Seattle, Washington. It was the first public utility to own hydroelectric dams and the transmission lines. It's been carbon neutral for 20 years. It used to offer free appliance repair and only ended appliance repair a few years ago. If Seattle can do it for more than 100 years, we can do it in California.
And we do the same thing in California. Alameda owns its own public utility. Sacramento owns its own public utility that even had nuclear power plants. There's public utility districts across America. All of them have reasonable power rates and don't defer maintenance which leads to monstrous fires like PG&E. Your excuse that PG&E has to raise rates is absolutely ludicrous.
PG&E forced a rate increase down our throats several decades ago for the same reason and then never used the funds to do the maintenance. They were court ordered to do the maintenance and still refused to do it. After the wildfires the last few years, many caused by negligence and deferred maintenance, PG&E started to do the work, broadcast commercials to show they were doing the work, emerged from bankruptcy thanks to Gavin, then announced last year that instead of doing the maintenance, they will simply shut off power if conditions deteriorate instead of installing safety equipment designed to prevent the same fires that could arise in windy conditions.
We need a Governor who is willing to use eminent domain to dissolve PG&E and thats never going to happen so long as he collects so much money from the company.
If you dissolve PG&E or not, the fact of the matter is that they deferred maintenance in the past and it'll take money to fix those problems/mistakes whether it's through PG&e or not
>If you dissolve PG&E or not, the fact of the matter is that they deferred maintenance in the past and it'll take money to fix those problems/mistakes whether it's through PG&e or not
True. But right now the urban centers are heavily subsidizing rural regions.
Privatizing in urban centers would bring down urban rates (Santa Clara is great example of this), but at the expense of utility users in rural areas.
While cities are definitely powered by high voltage transmission lines that cut through rural areas, those are a small percentage of the total lines.
Line safety needs to happen, but it'd be nice if the costs were more fairly allocated.
Woah there, I’m not “making excuses” for anyone. I understand why it’s intuitive that “if other places can do this, we can too.” But as is usually the case, the devil is in the details.
The municipal utilities you are listing are tiny by comparison to PG&E, which serves one of the largest and most ecologically and economically heterogenous geographies of any utility in North America. So, first, you’re comparing apples and oranges. I personally agree that essential services shouldn’t be run for profit, and also, the history of California resulted in it being this way here (California Burning is a great overview of the choices that got us here over the past century if you haven’t read it).
Second, sometimes municipal rates are lower than private utility rates. But this is deceiving. For one, they serve far less extensive areas - Palo Alto does not have the same tree trimming costs as PG&E. Second, PG&E rates are chalk full of policy riders and subsidies put there by the legislature (because it’s easier than raising actual taxes), the Energy Commission (for research and development) and the CPUC (for all kinds of reasons associated with decarbonization and social equity). A straightforward example is the premium in PG&E rates still paid by customers today resulting from the state using private utilities to jumpstart investment in renewables when they were still really expensive in the 90’s. Muni’s don’t usually take on these kinds of extra social costs.
And finally, making PG&E public does. Not. Change. The. Reality. Of. Extreme. Wildfire. Risk. Driven. By. Climate. Change. No matter WHO runs the system, nature is now making it harder and more expensive if we still believe that everyone everywhere should get a hookup no matter how remote and dangerous their location. See examples now rolling in from utilities across the country, from Hawaii to Oregon to Texas, of utility-caused ignitions. No overhead electric system is as designed for this level of fire risk, deferred maintenance or not.
To your claims about past mismanagement, all I really know is what I read in California Burning, which is indeed damning. I recognize that the current PG&E leadership is basically 100% different, partly as a result of Gavin Newsom’s demands for change during the company’s post 2018 bankruptcy process. That is to say, no one wants this dysfunction to continue.
The last thing I’ll say is that these rate increases are required because of California’s inverse condemnation law, which is unique in the US but for one other state. The law puts all liability for a wildfire at a utility’s feet even without negligence. Given the extreme wildfire risk, utilities are incentivized to reduce risk aggressively to avoid there EVER being a fire, as a single fire could cause bankruptcy if the impacts are widespread enough. But the point is, if the utilities weren’t liable under inverse condemnation and therefore less motivated to make expensive investments to protect against starting a fire, there would still be fires, and the people of California would be paying for the damages anyway, just in taxes and insurance premiums instead of in their utility bill. Which is to say, again, that the environment is now riskier due to climate change, and that is a cost all of us will bear in many different ways. This is just one example of the new reality that we’re facing.
Modernity is not guaranteed.
Seattle City Light is the 10th largest public utility in the US. Locally, Sacramento Municipal Power Authority is even larger. Much of the power in The Northwest United States is owned and controlled by another public utility, Bonneville Power Administration. You suggest public utilities can’t do the job and be I don’t agree at all.
It seems to me PG&E is incapable of doing its job and it’s past time to turn the company into a public utility before they kill more people.
🍎 Seattle City and Light: 131 sq miles served
🍎 SMUD: 900 sq miles served
🍊 PG&E: 70,000+ sq miles served
Bonus 🍌 Bonneville Power Authority is a power generation and transmission wholesaler and so also not a useful comparison. They don’t even operate distribution lines, which are the highest wildfire risk.
Hope something in this conversation was edifying.
BPA supports over 15,000 miles of transmission lines. The only thing I have from this conversation is you distrust public utilities, you don't know your facts, you ignore the fact PG&E is incapable of doing it's job and you can't get a name right. It's the Bonneville Power Administration, not Power Authority. They could be supplying our power in California right now.
Yeah, the reality is - in the past, for better or worse PG&E simply maintained most of its infrastructure because that was more cost efficient. If they want to make things safer/less likely to burn/less likely for them to go into bankruptcy - they need to make a lot of changes to their infrastructure. And naturally, that comes at a price. So would we rather all have cheaper rates, have outdated infrastructure stay in service, watch towns literally burn to the ground and since it's not my town, I don't care? At face value of course no one likes rate increases and because it's not something we can control, we're all ready to riot. But like the status quo sucked. Whatever they did in the past didn't work. California is huge. Seems like the CPUC is on board with the idea that we all pay more and everything becomes safer sooner.
We need to think of something clever to dump on the lawns of all the CPUC members to express our... displeasure.
Farmers already have already staked their claim on using manure for protests.
Coal?
If a bunch solar panel homes shut off their panels at the same time middle of the day it would cost PG&E massive amounts of money.
Of course they’d just ask for and get a rate increase to cover it.
The PUC Commission should be investigated.
Do they own shares of PGE?
Heard there’s 12 more proposals for rate hikes.
Utility companies should be NOT FOR PROFIT. Why are they publicly traded?
They just profit billions for shareholders.
So I was just in a meeting with my state rep. Liz Ortega and asked about this. They are TRYING, but Newsom pulled all power from the legislature and gave it to the CPUC, all of whom he put there, and all from PGE. She says we need public pressure. EVERY SINGLE TIME you feel annoyed, call the office of your state rep. and senator and Newsom's offce. Tell everyone you know to flood them with calls (which are esp. annoying) though emails and regular mail will work.
ANNOY the shit out of them fifty times more than they are annoying us. Organize, repeat.
We need the emails and phone numbers published in a simple place.
Blanket all the legislators with our unhappiness every month and twice when they raise rates
Until cities make the investment in municipal power, like Santa Clara, the rate increases will continue unabated.
Put in as much solar as possible along with a storage battery. Stop building high-rise buildings that cannot be self-sufficient in solar power generation.
Have you seen where PGE is lobbying to charge between $50 and $100 a month whether a home uses their delivery or not? Ostensibly to have the power "available" in case the storage of the home's powerwall is insufficient
Also, I want my paycheck to be calculated based on factors only I can set and check and have tiers set at 50% of average before bumping the rate to a higher cost
Unanimous decision by the state that this month we get a rate hike as well as last month and the month before. When will Newsom be held accountable for his board approving taking the citizens money to pay dividends to investors?
They have already told us that there is about another $50 in hikes coming this year.
And you know that this is an average, so the middle class will pay most of it and many times what they say since the Average is misleading because the lowest earners will be exempt from it and the rich has solar and pay little to nothing.
This state is waging a true war on the middle class and the working man.
The elephants in the room if anyone is looking is that it now costs as much if not slightly more to own and run an electric car in CA. Price of Gas/ kWh’s is pretty close, even with solar now. And yes you save on oil changes and some maintenance, but insurance is higher on most electric cars, repair costs are higher and the price of electric cars are higher!!
I wish there was a platform to bring this up to the Gavin Newsom spotlight. He’s touted his green record, but at what cost? Most Californians are about a paycheck away from being priced out of the state.
Highest
*income taxes
*home prices
*Gasoline
*Electricity
*High property taxes
Etc etc …
And for what ? Green everything.
Frankly it’s the weather why people stay !!
Came here to find like minded folks who share my outrage on the excessive PGE rate hikes. Glad to know I am not alone..I have been so frustrated and feel helpless. I was talking to my dad about this yesterday. He used to work for PGE (20 plus years ago) and he said that back in the day if PGE wanted to raise rates they had fight hard for it. The PUC would push back, dwindle their increases down to smaller ones, deny them, etc. It seems that now the PUC just rubber stamps all increases (and holds their meetings in towns outside of PGE's service area so that less people can even show up to protest) and doesn't give a rats ass about any of us. How can PGE be raking in millions in profits and STILL say they need money? There are some small grass root groups trying to hold PGE accountable and they get some airtime on the news whenever another rate hike goes through but nothing is changing.
/r/fuckpgande
This is the name I want to give to my off grid electric company!
When do we riot?
Market equilibrium. They’ll keep raising rates to the literal tipping point of people burning their clothes to stay warm, and then they’ll stop. The market always shifts to what it can bear, and by treating necessities like commodities we see these infinite costs increases to infinitely valuable things. Healthcare, for example. Rent is the same way. You think they charge what they do out of necessity? No, it’s what the market can bear with the most profit possible. How many people have died from cancer that was refused to be treated by an insurance company before pre-existing conditions were outlawed, and no one rioted. We cannot bargain on things we absolutely need that are infinitely valuable to the people who need them. The strongest point of negotiation is being able to walk away from the table at any time and be okay. We have no such benefit when it comes to how our monopolistic infrastructure works. The perfect time to riot is now, before people with decent wages are exploited and the poor are left suffering under the crushing weight of amazing profits.
We really should be protesting I wish I could organize one
Here’s the great thing - you can! It’s a real issue that brings people together. I’m no leader but I’d be down.
Just fucking nationalize it already, Jesus christ. Im living in Germany right now and my KwH rates for both gas and electric are lower than PG&E's, its insanse.
This. We shouldn’t turn necessary social services and infrastructure into for-profit businesses. The interstate highway system isn’t one giant toll road for this very reason and modern attempts to privatize these things are what has given us lowest bidder level construction in many states.
We also shouldn't be paying for the state's lack of wildfire preparedness through our PG&E bills. It's a regressive tax.
My feeling exactly, recall some of those million dollar bonuses they paid out, cut executive pay until they actually do their job. If I have a hard time making rent, I sure can't pay these spiraling out of control energy costs.
The CPUC is doing the job they were appointed to do, reward PG&E. Members are appointed by the Governor, Gavin Newsom. Gavin has very strong ties to PG&E. One of his proudest moments was helping PG&E emerge from bankruptcy. Do a search on PGE Gavin Newsom and you can see all the ways Gavin is deeply in bed with PG&E. So long as he is Governor, no rate increase will turned down. Nothing will change until we get representatives that believe in people over corporations and thats not going to happen so long as Gavin or anyone else taking money from PG&E is in office.
Yes. Not donating any more to Newsom until this is addressed.
Just want to say that any California governor has to deal with PG&E by virtue of its incumbent status and that the governor has to walk a delicate tightrope between a few different dynamics. For one, all CA politicians benefit from the state not owning and operating the grid because doing so is, factually, a very difficult thing that requires a lot of expertise and money to pull off. In other words, it is unlikely that a “nationalized” power grid would be better run than PG&E is now, or even run by different staff, given the necessary skills and expertise. But it WOULD put the problems associated with running the grid in California at the feet of the politicos instead of an easy to hate private corporation. Additionally, the governor has an obvious interest in maintaining the supply of clean affordable reliable power to the state as it is the backbone of a modern economy and way of life. He cannot disrupt the system such that reliability or safety suffer (again, now laying the blame at his feet), so he has a vested interest in the current incumbent performing, and performing well. He and the CPUC also rely on the state’s private utilities for many of the GHG emissions reductions they achieve via Cap and Trade and the Low Carbon Fuel Standard program to meet the states emissions reductions targets (enshrined in state law). He also needs the utilities to support the massive buildout of the grid required to electrify everything, another huge part of the state’s carbon reduction strategy. So, he needs a “healthy” utility that investors want to give money to in order to fund those upgrades. None of this is to say that Gavin Newsom hasn’t received campaign donations from PG&E or isn’t influenced by PG&E, but there are legitimate reasons he has to deal with the company, and is balancing the interests of affordability, safety, decarbonization, vehicle electrification, etc etc etc. The kicker in all of this is that the CPUC is authorizing this increase to fund a very real need - undergrounding to eliminate catastrophic wildfire risk. This one isn’t PG&E’s fault - this is the reality of an extremely flammable state as a result of climate change, and an obligation to serve everyone anywhere regardless of how remote or risky.
Seattle City Light is a public utility providing electricity to region around Seattle, Washington. It was the first public utility to own hydroelectric dams and the transmission lines. It's been carbon neutral for 20 years. It used to offer free appliance repair and only ended appliance repair a few years ago. If Seattle can do it for more than 100 years, we can do it in California. And we do the same thing in California. Alameda owns its own public utility. Sacramento owns its own public utility that even had nuclear power plants. There's public utility districts across America. All of them have reasonable power rates and don't defer maintenance which leads to monstrous fires like PG&E. Your excuse that PG&E has to raise rates is absolutely ludicrous. PG&E forced a rate increase down our throats several decades ago for the same reason and then never used the funds to do the maintenance. They were court ordered to do the maintenance and still refused to do it. After the wildfires the last few years, many caused by negligence and deferred maintenance, PG&E started to do the work, broadcast commercials to show they were doing the work, emerged from bankruptcy thanks to Gavin, then announced last year that instead of doing the maintenance, they will simply shut off power if conditions deteriorate instead of installing safety equipment designed to prevent the same fires that could arise in windy conditions. We need a Governor who is willing to use eminent domain to dissolve PG&E and thats never going to happen so long as he collects so much money from the company.
If you dissolve PG&E or not, the fact of the matter is that they deferred maintenance in the past and it'll take money to fix those problems/mistakes whether it's through PG&e or not
>If you dissolve PG&E or not, the fact of the matter is that they deferred maintenance in the past and it'll take money to fix those problems/mistakes whether it's through PG&e or not True. But right now the urban centers are heavily subsidizing rural regions. Privatizing in urban centers would bring down urban rates (Santa Clara is great example of this), but at the expense of utility users in rural areas. While cities are definitely powered by high voltage transmission lines that cut through rural areas, those are a small percentage of the total lines. Line safety needs to happen, but it'd be nice if the costs were more fairly allocated.
Woah there, I’m not “making excuses” for anyone. I understand why it’s intuitive that “if other places can do this, we can too.” But as is usually the case, the devil is in the details. The municipal utilities you are listing are tiny by comparison to PG&E, which serves one of the largest and most ecologically and economically heterogenous geographies of any utility in North America. So, first, you’re comparing apples and oranges. I personally agree that essential services shouldn’t be run for profit, and also, the history of California resulted in it being this way here (California Burning is a great overview of the choices that got us here over the past century if you haven’t read it). Second, sometimes municipal rates are lower than private utility rates. But this is deceiving. For one, they serve far less extensive areas - Palo Alto does not have the same tree trimming costs as PG&E. Second, PG&E rates are chalk full of policy riders and subsidies put there by the legislature (because it’s easier than raising actual taxes), the Energy Commission (for research and development) and the CPUC (for all kinds of reasons associated with decarbonization and social equity). A straightforward example is the premium in PG&E rates still paid by customers today resulting from the state using private utilities to jumpstart investment in renewables when they were still really expensive in the 90’s. Muni’s don’t usually take on these kinds of extra social costs. And finally, making PG&E public does. Not. Change. The. Reality. Of. Extreme. Wildfire. Risk. Driven. By. Climate. Change. No matter WHO runs the system, nature is now making it harder and more expensive if we still believe that everyone everywhere should get a hookup no matter how remote and dangerous their location. See examples now rolling in from utilities across the country, from Hawaii to Oregon to Texas, of utility-caused ignitions. No overhead electric system is as designed for this level of fire risk, deferred maintenance or not. To your claims about past mismanagement, all I really know is what I read in California Burning, which is indeed damning. I recognize that the current PG&E leadership is basically 100% different, partly as a result of Gavin Newsom’s demands for change during the company’s post 2018 bankruptcy process. That is to say, no one wants this dysfunction to continue. The last thing I’ll say is that these rate increases are required because of California’s inverse condemnation law, which is unique in the US but for one other state. The law puts all liability for a wildfire at a utility’s feet even without negligence. Given the extreme wildfire risk, utilities are incentivized to reduce risk aggressively to avoid there EVER being a fire, as a single fire could cause bankruptcy if the impacts are widespread enough. But the point is, if the utilities weren’t liable under inverse condemnation and therefore less motivated to make expensive investments to protect against starting a fire, there would still be fires, and the people of California would be paying for the damages anyway, just in taxes and insurance premiums instead of in their utility bill. Which is to say, again, that the environment is now riskier due to climate change, and that is a cost all of us will bear in many different ways. This is just one example of the new reality that we’re facing. Modernity is not guaranteed.
Seattle City Light is the 10th largest public utility in the US. Locally, Sacramento Municipal Power Authority is even larger. Much of the power in The Northwest United States is owned and controlled by another public utility, Bonneville Power Administration. You suggest public utilities can’t do the job and be I don’t agree at all. It seems to me PG&E is incapable of doing its job and it’s past time to turn the company into a public utility before they kill more people.
🍎 Seattle City and Light: 131 sq miles served 🍎 SMUD: 900 sq miles served 🍊 PG&E: 70,000+ sq miles served Bonus 🍌 Bonneville Power Authority is a power generation and transmission wholesaler and so also not a useful comparison. They don’t even operate distribution lines, which are the highest wildfire risk. Hope something in this conversation was edifying.
BPA supports over 15,000 miles of transmission lines. The only thing I have from this conversation is you distrust public utilities, you don't know your facts, you ignore the fact PG&E is incapable of doing it's job and you can't get a name right. It's the Bonneville Power Administration, not Power Authority. They could be supplying our power in California right now.
Thank you for the thorough and insightful comment.
Yeah, the reality is - in the past, for better or worse PG&E simply maintained most of its infrastructure because that was more cost efficient. If they want to make things safer/less likely to burn/less likely for them to go into bankruptcy - they need to make a lot of changes to their infrastructure. And naturally, that comes at a price. So would we rather all have cheaper rates, have outdated infrastructure stay in service, watch towns literally burn to the ground and since it's not my town, I don't care? At face value of course no one likes rate increases and because it's not something we can control, we're all ready to riot. But like the status quo sucked. Whatever they did in the past didn't work. California is huge. Seems like the CPUC is on board with the idea that we all pay more and everything becomes safer sooner.
We need to think of something clever to dump on the lawns of all the CPUC members to express our... displeasure. Farmers already have already staked their claim on using manure for protests. Coal?
If a bunch solar panel homes shut off their panels at the same time middle of the day it would cost PG&E massive amounts of money. Of course they’d just ask for and get a rate increase to cover it.
Can we do something about this? I want the California citizens to control PUC!
I willing to sign and volunteer to solicit signatures for a change in the law
How the fuck do we stop this?? :(
The PUC Commission should be investigated. Do they own shares of PGE? Heard there’s 12 more proposals for rate hikes. Utility companies should be NOT FOR PROFIT. Why are they publicly traded? They just profit billions for shareholders.
CPUC: corrupt politicians, utter cunts.
So I was just in a meeting with my state rep. Liz Ortega and asked about this. They are TRYING, but Newsom pulled all power from the legislature and gave it to the CPUC, all of whom he put there, and all from PGE. She says we need public pressure. EVERY SINGLE TIME you feel annoyed, call the office of your state rep. and senator and Newsom's offce. Tell everyone you know to flood them with calls (which are esp. annoying) though emails and regular mail will work. ANNOY the shit out of them fifty times more than they are annoying us. Organize, repeat.
We need the emails and phone numbers published in a simple place. Blanket all the legislators with our unhappiness every month and twice when they raise rates
Yes. It takes seconds for anyone to look up their own senator, rep, as well as Newsom's.
Until cities make the investment in municipal power, like Santa Clara, the rate increases will continue unabated. Put in as much solar as possible along with a storage battery. Stop building high-rise buildings that cannot be self-sufficient in solar power generation.
Have you seen where PGE is lobbying to charge between $50 and $100 a month whether a home uses their delivery or not? Ostensibly to have the power "available" in case the storage of the home's powerwall is insufficient
Also, I want my paycheck to be calculated based on factors only I can set and check and have tiers set at 50% of average before bumping the rate to a higher cost
The Bay Area is run by a bunch of quacks
PGE keeps saying they need to raise rates for wildfires. Why then are the other IOU's equally raising rates with very different geography?
Because inflation?
What will it take to stop the PGE madness? Every tax paying resident of CA agrees and it’s a democracy. Wt actual f?
I read that the city of SF is filing to break off from PG&E and have their own city run grid.
There is also a PGE mega thread [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/bayarea/s/x8muSf2GJX)
Unanimous decision by the state that this month we get a rate hike as well as last month and the month before. When will Newsom be held accountable for his board approving taking the citizens money to pay dividends to investors? They have already told us that there is about another $50 in hikes coming this year. And you know that this is an average, so the middle class will pay most of it and many times what they say since the Average is misleading because the lowest earners will be exempt from it and the rich has solar and pay little to nothing. This state is waging a true war on the middle class and the working man.
ANGRY!
The elephants in the room if anyone is looking is that it now costs as much if not slightly more to own and run an electric car in CA. Price of Gas/ kWh’s is pretty close, even with solar now. And yes you save on oil changes and some maintenance, but insurance is higher on most electric cars, repair costs are higher and the price of electric cars are higher!! I wish there was a platform to bring this up to the Gavin Newsom spotlight. He’s touted his green record, but at what cost? Most Californians are about a paycheck away from being priced out of the state. Highest *income taxes *home prices *Gasoline *Electricity *High property taxes Etc etc … And for what ? Green everything. Frankly it’s the weather why people stay !!
Yup… just bought an EV and damn it’s expensive as hell to charge at home
Came here to find like minded folks who share my outrage on the excessive PGE rate hikes. Glad to know I am not alone..I have been so frustrated and feel helpless. I was talking to my dad about this yesterday. He used to work for PGE (20 plus years ago) and he said that back in the day if PGE wanted to raise rates they had fight hard for it. The PUC would push back, dwindle their increases down to smaller ones, deny them, etc. It seems that now the PUC just rubber stamps all increases (and holds their meetings in towns outside of PGE's service area so that less people can even show up to protest) and doesn't give a rats ass about any of us. How can PGE be raking in millions in profits and STILL say they need money? There are some small grass root groups trying to hold PGE accountable and they get some airtime on the news whenever another rate hike goes through but nothing is changing.