Your electric rates have DOUBLED!

This opinion from the Orange County Register is reproduced under the fair use provision of U.S. copyright law and is published here for archival not-for-profit purposes.  Please read the original report here. Electric bills have essentially doubled over the past decade Column: Free Edison programs aim to help you seal up. But the pain is real. By Teri Sforza | tsforza@scng.com | Orange County Register UPDATED:…

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Letter to the Editor, Orange County Register

The following is a letter to the Editors of the Orange County Register in response to an exceptionally  well-researched report by columnist Terri Sforza.   The letter was written by Public Watchdogs’ Director of Development, Nina Babiarz, In the original opinion, Sforza pointed out the link between our sky-high electric rate increases, and how utility profits, are directly connected to the utilities’ questionable “costs.”  In this response,…

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Corporate Censorship: Yahoo and AOL are blocking the free speech of nuclear activists

WARNING: If you use Yahoo or AOL, you may never receive an email from Public Watchdogs because those emails are being censored. Yahoo is censoring emails from anti-nuclear groups such as Public Watchdogs, and also the emails of prominent citizens who support us, or have been actively organizing against the threat of nuclear war, nuclear disasters, and nuclear power. And because you are reading this, you…

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“Twinkle-Eyed” fun and games at the failed San Onofre Nuclear Power Plant

If a handful of the radioactive plutonium stored at the failed San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station was atomized, spread evenly over the earth, and then inhaled, it would be enough to give every person on the planet cancer.  Plutonium is one of the many eternally deadly radioactive metals that are present in every pellet of the more than 3.6 million pounds of nuclear waste at San…

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Critique of the Orange County Register and its pro-nuclear valence

The editorial opinion below is in response to a “twinkle-eyed fun and games” opinion  by Teri Sforza in the Orange County Register.  The Register’s opinion is peculiar because it downplays the lethal nature of nuclear waste as “boring.” The rebuttal below is  by Ace Hoffman,  author of the popular graphic-novel monograph,  Code Killers.  The original essay can be found at the acehoffman.org website at this  page. …

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It is impossible to buy insurance against nuclear disasters

Today, Dr. Sarah Mosco published an important and widely distributed editorial opinion explaining that it is impossible for citizens to buy insurance against a nuclear disaster at the failed San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station’s beachfront nuclear waste dump. Get the opinion here. Background on Emergency Planning at San Onofre Public Watchdogs exposed the lax safety regulation at San Onofre in its widely acclaimed report Radiological Regulatory…

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The AB 205 Shell Game: How the promises of AB 205 and AB 1999 were broken

  AB 1999 was supposed to repeal the deeply flawed AB 205.  It didn’t. As documented on our website for months, Public Watchdogs has followed the entire legislative process of AB 205 from beginning to its promised end when California Assemblywoman Jackie Irwin led a press conference committing to introduce new legislation to “roll back the Public Utility Commission’s proposed income graduated fixed fee.” AB 1999…

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Why the new California AB 205 income-based surcharge is a horrific invasion of your privacy, and how you can protest it.

SIGN THE PETITION Like something repulsive oozing from the bottom of your shoe, Assembly Bill 205 is a revolting mess that requires a yet unidentified California government agency to start tracking your personal income.  After this agency gets possession of your private and personal tax information, a crack team of state-funded bureaucrats will decide how to charge the new fees on your electric bill as soon…

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AB 205 legislation

Recent Legislation Will Significantly Change How Utilities Calculate Residential Electricity Rates; according to August 29, 2023 California State Audit of the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) Go back to main Ab 205 page. Get this page as a pdf file. The Legislature is requiring the CPUC to authorize a fixed charge based on income in default residential electricity rates starting no later than July 1, 2024,…

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Analysis of California Tax Policy Relevant to AB-205, Governor Newsom’s Income-Based utility tax plan

Here’s the direct link to Franchise Tax Board’s Mission Statement and also their Founding Principles:  https://www.ftb.ca.gov/about-ftb/index.html   NOTE #1: Franchise Tax Board’s ‘Founding Principles’ also include their Statement of Principles of Tax Administration & Taxpayer Bill of Rights direct links embedded below :   Mission Statement:                 “Our mission is to help taxpayers file timely and accurate tax returns and pay the correct amount to fund…

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Text of California Assembly Bill 205, June 30, 2022

Text of California Assembly Bill 205 (AB 205, June 30, 2022), downloaded from https://legiscan.com/ on January 7, 2024. Not a word has been changed. For a hyperlink to this document on the Legiscan Web site, click here, or https://bit.ly/3tJnzVL Assembly Bill No. 205 CHAPTER 61 An act to add Article 13 (commencing with Section 16429.8) to Chapter 2 of Part 2 of Division 4 of Title…

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Tempers flare on 40th Anniversary of TMI meltdown at the San Onofre Nuclear “Community Engagement Panel”

At 4:00 a.m. on March 28, 1979, the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant had a meltdown.  Public Watchdogs’ director of development, Nina Babiarz, was working in Pennsylvania as a reporter not far from the disaster. Forty years later, Babiarz addressed Southern California Edison’s public relations organ, the “Community Engagement Panel” on the decommissioning of the failed and leaking nuclear reactors at the San Onofre Nuclear…

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