Today, Senate Minority Leader Brian W. Jones (R-San Diego) and all members of the Senate Republican Caucus delivered an urgent letter to the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) requesting that they reject a proposal for a new $24.15 fixed charge on electrical bills. Click here to read the caucus’s letter.
The unelected members of the CPUC, who are Governor Newsom’s appointees, will consider the fixed utility charge during their voting meeting this Thursday, May 9, 2024. In the letter to the CPUC, the Senate Republican Caucus expressed concerns that the fixed charge is uncapped and “inherently flawed” because it “discourages energy conservation, as customers will be forced to pay $24.15 extra, regardless of their energy use.”
Below is an excerpt of the Senate Republican Caucus’s letter to the CPUC:
… While this plan comes with supposed reductions in per-kilowatt usage rates and reduced charges for lower-income customers, consumers will still face nearly $300 per year in increased charges. We are particularly concerned that this will only be the beginning. The CPUC has been granted unchecked power to increase this new charge at any time. If the $24.15 plan is approved, the next proposal may see the fixed charge hiked to $50, $100, or even higher! …
Today, the San Diego Union-Tribune published Leader Jones’s Op-Ed expressing his concerns with the unfair fixed charge and his attempt to repeal this new charge with his “Cost of Living Reduction Act.” Despite bipartisan support for repealing the fixed charge, his measure did not pass out of committee. Click here to read Leader Jones’s Op-Ed.
Californians already pay some of the highest utility rates in the country and this new proposal would make it even worse for struggling families, saddling them with nearly $300 annually in additional fixed charges.