Soon, how much money you pay for electricity will be based on your income.
Even if your income is at poverty level, your electric bill is still going up!
No wonder people are fleeing California in record numbers.
In a few months you will be paying a new charge based on your income on your residential electricity bill. The amount you pay will be determined by California Government Bureaucrats.
Assembly Bill 205, which was championed by California Governor Gavin Newsom, mandates the new income-based utility fee. How much you pay, however, will be decided by a group of unelected appointed bureaucrats making a princely $220,000 a year, plus benefits and pensions. These bureaucrats will be helping every electric company in California violate your privacy by searching your tax returns (without a legal warrant) in violation of the guaranteed right to privacy articulated in the first sentence of the California Constitution.
Nobody who pays for an electric bill will escape this charge. Even poor people with low incomes will be required to pay this income based electric charge, as well as ordinary lower and middle class customers, and the wealthy, too.
In short, California Assembly Bill 205 (AB 205) is a horrific piece of badly crafted legislation that will increase your electric utility bill based on your income. Get the text of the bill here.
California Congresswoman Jackie Irwin, who voted for it, (as did 100% of the California Assembly), says that the California Public Utility Commission (CPUC), which is tasked with implementing the new charges on your electric bill, must decide within 30-days who will pay how much, depending on their income level (the CPUC’s deadline is June 2024).
Get the press conference video condemning AB 205 here.
Athough she voted for it, California Assemblywoman Jackie Irwin has urged the recall of AB 205, expressing dislike of the bill’s income-based fee provisions, and saying that it is essential for California to lower both electricity rates and greenhouse gas emissions in order to meet California’s climate goals. Ms. Irwin did not explain why she voted for it in the first place.
According to Irwin, California’s climate goals will be met by encouraging better electric vehicle charging schemes. She also stated that according to the independent California Public Advisors Office, widespread electrification should create downward pressure on electricity rates that could save up to $26 Billion. Irwin also stressed that the best outcome will only be achieved by convening an open rate-setting process.
San Diego Assembly member Chris Ward who also voted in favor of increasing your electric bills, notes that San Diego already pays the USA’s highest utility rates. Mr. Ward says that “Stopping what’s been put in place already is the right thing to do before serious consequences result.” Even though Mr. Ward voted for it, he has stated that “Assembly Bill 205 will create more administrative expenses, and drive up rates; further threatening rooftop solar incentives and reducing conservation behaviors.”
District 11 Assemblyman Scott Weiner says the AB 205 plan is “Outrageous and wrong” even though he voted for it.
Weiner notes that California’s Independently Owned Utilities (IOUs) have successfully doubled our electric rates in the last ten years, and says that when AB 205 is implemented, that the average customer will be forced to pay an extra $830.00 a year, on average, for their electricity. “A typical family of four with a $70,000 a year income will be forced to pay the new tax while the rich utility owners continue to get paid,” says Weiner who is urging the CPUC needs to withdraw its current proposal and tell the Investor Owned Utilities to come back with a proposal that actually works without continually jacking up rates.”
Assembly member Rebecca Bauer-Kahan Representing the 16th District in the Bay Area, also voted in favor of higher rates by voting in favor of the new electricity charges on your bill. Although to hear her, it sounds as though she’s fighting on behalf of ratepayers. “Utility rates in California are too damned high. We are here because we have had enough and we are ready to take action … the PUC is greenlighting every single rate increase we see coming out of the IOUs across the state. So we need to look long and hard at how the PUC is doing this, why they are doing it, and how we drive down rates for Californians. As everybody knows, it is getting harder and harder to live in California.”
annual