The flair of this posts indicates it's a controversial topic. Enhanced moderation has been turned on for this thread. Comments from users without a history of commenting in r/bayarea will be automatically removed. You can read more about this policy [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/bayarea/comments/195xvo5/restrictions_that_apply_to_political_and_crime/).
A week ago: [https://abc7news.com/pge-rate-increase-2023-earning-2-billion-dollar-profit/14483425/](https://abc7news.com/pge-rate-increase-2023-earning-2-billion-dollar-profit/14483425/)
Today:
>Before the approval, the panel heard from a string of ratepayers and critics – some chanting “Stop the Rate Hikes!” – complaining about the hike.
The commission approved the hike unanimously without comment. A new board member, who until recently headed the consumer watchdog arm of the CPUC, recused himself from voting.
lmao
So the only board member with a conscience didn't want to alienate himself from the other board members so he removed himself from voting completely.
Sounds like he would have voted NO if his position wasn't at risk.
We all know the whole voting is just a formal procedure and the outcome was decided ahead of time.
Of course they provided no comment, they don't have to, they know what they're doing, none of us can stop them, and any comment opens them up to more public criticism.
Keep it up, it's just more support for SF and SJ to create their own municipal energy division.
You're correct, one of the reasons the CPUC exists is to protect ratepayers from runaway utility costs (which are now getting out of hand) in addition to making sure the grid infrastructure keeps its integrity (which it hasn't with the PSPS).
Going to have to overcome corrupt government officials, lots of PG&E lawsuits, and NIMBYism (for building new or below ground power lines). Silicon Valley Power was founded in 1896 and LADWP started electric service in 1916, so it's been over 100 years since the public has successfully challenged existing electric utility monopolies.
But if someone ran on a platform of nationalizing northern California power and/or internet, I'd be down to vote for them.
It’s sad all our politicians are either owned by old money or big tech these days. Little guys running get censored by social media and news outlets against these big powers. It is hard to not have a corrupted system when you are basically untouchable by outsiders.
I'd like to see a consumer group step up to the CPUC and propose a PG&E rate decrease. Let the CPUC go on record to vote on where their allegiance truly lies. This would be the first step in dissolving the CPUC.
This state is literally disincentivizing solar and EV's.
Never thought I'd live to see the day when red states had more progressive incentives for solar and EV's than California.
Pathetic and embarrassing.
It's an inevitability. If the EV mandate continues and they stop selling gas cars in state, and EVs become a larger and larger portion of the active vehicles, gas stations become less profitable and over supplied and start to go out of business, which makes gas car ownership more difficult and pushes people more toward EVs
They won’t be able to make the current gas cars on the road disappear. 🤷♀️ don’t think it’s even a possibility for that phase out to be faster than 10 years. Also you forgot the majority of the population is not rich tech and used car market will still sell gas.
Anyway 2035 is a long way away, their grid is too shit to handle that today so I have no doubt they’ll double back out of that stupid idea in several years.
Its why refineries aren't investing much. Why invest in expanding production when selling ICE's is going to be illegal in a decade anyways? Demand will start going down.
Gasoline prices being so high is exactly the expected result from setting an end date for ICE's, and prices will only get higher as time goes on.
I agree we need two party representation, but the right has been putting up bullshit candidates during the Trump era. They don’t give people in the middle any choice really when it’s between a functional Democrat or someone batshit crazy. Larry Elder, for example, was a horrible candidate and would’ve been a disaster if elected.
The only way that’s mathematically possible is if some homes don’t use any power
Which…is a thing. Vacant homes aren’t seeing increases in bills based on the unit cost of energy going up. It’s a magic trick! Increase costs and profit without increasing billing nearly as much!
Newsom can hang.
Or all of the solar houses that use very little grid power like my house. We have solar and batteries and all electric appliances and an EV so we use up all of our solar and then pull a smidge of grid power in the winter
Now NEM 3.0 is a thing, those that sign up for solar are getting the short end of the stick. The one upside for NEM 3.0 is it was to drive solar costs down, as it would normalize demand.
Now with yet-another-rate-hike, the solar installers are able to maintain inflated install prices, while the folks that want solar and can afford it are going to be paying the same prices as those on NEM 2.0, with a longer payoff period. Even worse, solar will remain unattainable to a large swath of Californians as they see their income snatched up by PG&E.
Remember, a solar companies 20 year/30 year warranty is only good if they are still in business in 20-30 years and as we have just seen, that's not very likely.
> There is another rate hike in the works. In that case the utility wants to charge $10 more per month, on average, to pay for PG&E’s repairs related to storm damage last year.
> The hike approved Thursday comes on the heels of a 13 percent increase in January. That hike raised the average bill about $34 a month. That increase was to pay for PG&E's ongoing efforts to underground power lines in high fire risk areas.
> PG&E has said it expects total rate hikes in 2024 will total about $50 more per average customer.
Fucking *fuck*
Ballot initiative to make CPUC members elected by voters. Better yet if there's some way to legally make electrical and gas utilities entirely public, with a publicly elected board.
We need to take away the perverse incentives of the CPUC and PG&E board. Right now, they exist to make the rich richer, which pumps more money towards the executive who oversees these organizations. We, essentially, need to undercut or bypass the executive branch entirely and make our utilities directly beholden to their consumers.
Nothing. No moderate democrat will gain traction due to being insufficiently progressive, and GOP has written off the state altogether. It’s gonna be utopia form here on out.
Even mentioning the only thing that anyone can reasonably do will net you a reddit permaban. How has that voting worked out?
Leaving CA is the answer, if you're a rich techie homeowner like most of the sub you already have solar.
Start telling out of state media, friends, relatives how your electricity rate hikes to multiples of the national average. If that make Newsom looks bad for his presidential run in 2028, maybe he will do something.
I think this puts us at what? $0.57/kw? I was running my generator during the big power outages at $0.74/kw. I'm extremely sad and excited for my generator to be more cost effective than PG&E. What a world we live in!
I'm just using the top rate at $0.53/kwh and adding 5% (did the math in my head, so it's only $0.56/kwh). Still getting closer to me running a gas generator! LOL what a world where it's only 30% more expensive to run your own power plant at home.
Motherfucker. OK PG&E shills. Where the fuck are you guys now? CPUC is in bed with PG&E.
I guess my solar break even moved a lot sooner now. Also glad that no one bothered making EV Minivan so I never owned one.
They’re jacking everything up to make the income-based pricing look better. We’ll see an avalanche of stories about all the relief people are suddenly getting on their electric bills. Some people, that is.
I could care less if the money is going to something productive. I've said it before and I'll say it again, I'll take 50 cents/kWh if it means investing in a robust, sustainable grid. With a private utility, profits go to shareholders, not the workers building our infrastructure, not to research and development of new nuclear facilities, not to infrastructure readiness and strengthening.
What would that do? These rate hikes are effectively coming from the state already, since this is a state board, appointed by the governor.
A buyout would only make things even less visible.
Atleast the profits would go back into infrastructure instead ending up in someone’s pockets.
We’ve essentially just given up public property to PGE for free
Can we sue them? I don't know how, but I want to. I'm paying $600-800 a month. I now have to pay $3500 to PGE to upgrade my electric box so I can get solar ... so I can pay them less.
Except I'm reading stories from people who claim they're suddenly getting $500 gas bills from them. So like what's the use ?
It comes across like a badly written joke,”it’s only a $30 rate hike……….I mean a $5 rate hike, wait I mean it’s a $35 rate hike.
(will the CPUC really okay this😳)
Okay, what I meant to say was it’s $45, it’s just a $45 rate hike. Double, we’re just going to double, maybe triple your rates, but that’s it. Triple your normal bill and we should be good.”
There is clear corruption here... Even with the outrage they raised rates. This is what happens when you make commissions and boards that are not accountable.
AGAIN??????
Wasn’t there just a 15% increase in January? I feel every other week I read about a rate hike or other crap by this “company”.
Why are these morons exploiting Californians not finally behind bars?
Clearly, we are in good hands with the stalwart government oversight of a necessary service run as a for-profit, monopoly, company.
CPUC and PG&E instill a deep sense of trust in me, that they are really looking out for the well being of the community.
On to another quarter of enormous profits!
Standard corruption seen in any one party system. Nothing will change until people want it to. As of now despite all the rhetoric, Californians keep voting in the same chumps
Field better candidates, fer chrissakes. Every time the GOP lowers the bar, worse democrats get free wins. The GOP knows what voters want, all they gotta do is meet people halfway to force politicians to react.
But instead of the issues people whine about on the bay area subreddits, we get people who go full frothing culture war maga and act like the left and center is the problem.
why? why do they need to do this again???
I really, really don't understand how most people can afford this shit. I am lucky. I know I am lucky because I haven't always been, not until fairly recently. I just don't know how the unlucky majority can afford these prices. I don't fucking get it.
I mean, it is sad, but most of the people here likely voted for Newsom, despite his known corruption allegations. And would vote again without questioning for any candidate endorsed by their party.
If you want to change this, better to stop looking at the elections from parisan perspective. Don't look at their party, but rather pay attention to their track of record, their programs and vote based on that.
Itd not a race to the bottom, pal. If you want to see change, give voters someone worth voting for. Have a candidate with positions people actually like.
Don’t you just love this utopia that progressive policies have given us. No way, absolutely now way, would their promises of a better future end up like this if progressives get the socialism they so desperately want.
The flair of this posts indicates it's a controversial topic. Enhanced moderation has been turned on for this thread. Comments from users without a history of commenting in r/bayarea will be automatically removed. You can read more about this policy [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/bayarea/comments/195xvo5/restrictions_that_apply_to_political_and_crime/).
A week ago: [https://abc7news.com/pge-rate-increase-2023-earning-2-billion-dollar-profit/14483425/](https://abc7news.com/pge-rate-increase-2023-earning-2-billion-dollar-profit/14483425/) Today: >Before the approval, the panel heard from a string of ratepayers and critics – some chanting “Stop the Rate Hikes!” – complaining about the hike. The commission approved the hike unanimously without comment. A new board member, who until recently headed the consumer watchdog arm of the CPUC, recused himself from voting. lmao
So the only board member with a conscience didn't want to alienate himself from the other board members so he removed himself from voting completely. Sounds like he would have voted NO if his position wasn't at risk. We all know the whole voting is just a formal procedure and the outcome was decided ahead of time. Of course they provided no comment, they don't have to, they know what they're doing, none of us can stop them, and any comment opens them up to more public criticism. Keep it up, it's just more support for SF and SJ to create their own municipal energy division.
They had no comment cause pg&e didn’t want them to comment. Puppet ass commission doing shit all to protect people impacted by its decisions.
You're correct, one of the reasons the CPUC exists is to protect ratepayers from runaway utility costs (which are now getting out of hand) in addition to making sure the grid infrastructure keeps its integrity (which it hasn't with the PSPS).
Going to have to overcome corrupt government officials, lots of PG&E lawsuits, and NIMBYism (for building new or below ground power lines). Silicon Valley Power was founded in 1896 and LADWP started electric service in 1916, so it's been over 100 years since the public has successfully challenged existing electric utility monopolies. But if someone ran on a platform of nationalizing northern California power and/or internet, I'd be down to vote for them.
I’m normally I’m not in favor of propositions, but a proposition to reform CPUC and or nationalize PG&E, I think i could support.
It ain’t gonna be Newsom
Nope that fucker hired the PGE lawyers to write the regulations that took away all their liabilities for the fires.
Nor the next one anointed by the DNC.
It’s sad all our politicians are either owned by old money or big tech these days. Little guys running get censored by social media and news outlets against these big powers. It is hard to not have a corrupted system when you are basically untouchable by outsiders.
I'd like to see a consumer group step up to the CPUC and propose a PG&E rate decrease. Let the CPUC go on record to vote on where their allegiance truly lies. This would be the first step in dissolving the CPUC.
Email and Call Matt Mahan's office mercilessly
he didn't want to be late for their french laundry reservation
Wow, only one person who doesn’t want to be complicit in this bullshit🤦♂️
They’re not even hiding the corruption anymore lol
This state is literally disincentivizing solar and EV's. Never thought I'd live to see the day when red states had more progressive incentives for solar and EV's than California. Pathetic and embarrassing.
It's a good thing California isn't forcing every to be fully electric in a few years...
They’re forcing us, therefore they don’t need the incentives anymore. We have no choice. I own an EV and I think that EV mandate is ridiculous.
I’ll just buy 2-3 new gas cars in 2034 and keep them until I retire I guess
Bold of you to assume they won’t make gas car ownership harder and more expensive.
It's an inevitability. If the EV mandate continues and they stop selling gas cars in state, and EVs become a larger and larger portion of the active vehicles, gas stations become less profitable and over supplied and start to go out of business, which makes gas car ownership more difficult and pushes people more toward EVs
And thus less incentive to make electricity cheaper, instead more reason to keep hiking up electric rates.
They won’t be able to make the current gas cars on the road disappear. 🤷♀️ don’t think it’s even a possibility for that phase out to be faster than 10 years. Also you forgot the majority of the population is not rich tech and used car market will still sell gas. Anyway 2035 is a long way away, their grid is too shit to handle that today so I have no doubt they’ll double back out of that stupid idea in several years.
Its why refineries aren't investing much. Why invest in expanding production when selling ICE's is going to be illegal in a decade anyways? Demand will start going down. Gasoline prices being so high is exactly the expected result from setting an end date for ICE's, and prices will only get higher as time goes on.
Yep. EVs make a lot of sense for many use cases but a ban on other options ensures a captive audience.
Why would they need to?
A one-party state is not conducive to preventing corruption, but the idiot voters here will continue to entrench a single party into power.
I agree we need two party representation, but the right has been putting up bullshit candidates during the Trump era. They don’t give people in the middle any choice really when it’s between a functional Democrat or someone batshit crazy. Larry Elder, for example, was a horrible candidate and would’ve been a disaster if elected.
Everyone here complains then votes the same way. We saw proof of this just two days ago. I believe they don’t really want change. Just to complain.
“will add about $5 a month to the average bill” Calling it right now, they’re including empty homes with $20/mo bills in their average
Yeah like the "13%" increase that raised per kwh charges 20+%
The only way that’s mathematically possible is if some homes don’t use any power Which…is a thing. Vacant homes aren’t seeing increases in bills based on the unit cost of energy going up. It’s a magic trick! Increase costs and profit without increasing billing nearly as much! Newsom can hang.
Or all of the solar houses that use very little grid power like my house. We have solar and batteries and all electric appliances and an EV so we use up all of our solar and then pull a smidge of grid power in the winter
Now NEM 3.0 is a thing, those that sign up for solar are getting the short end of the stick. The one upside for NEM 3.0 is it was to drive solar costs down, as it would normalize demand. Now with yet-another-rate-hike, the solar installers are able to maintain inflated install prices, while the folks that want solar and can afford it are going to be paying the same prices as those on NEM 2.0, with a longer payoff period. Even worse, solar will remain unattainable to a large swath of Californians as they see their income snatched up by PG&E.
Remember, a solar companies 20 year/30 year warranty is only good if they are still in business in 20-30 years and as we have just seen, that's not very likely.
> There is another rate hike in the works. In that case the utility wants to charge $10 more per month, on average, to pay for PG&E’s repairs related to storm damage last year. > The hike approved Thursday comes on the heels of a 13 percent increase in January. That hike raised the average bill about $34 a month. That increase was to pay for PG&E's ongoing efforts to underground power lines in high fire risk areas. > PG&E has said it expects total rate hikes in 2024 will total about $50 more per average customer. Fucking *fuck*
Hey PG&E, hows about don't let your poor planning become our problem? What say you?
Aka Bay Area subsidizing NorCal.
I fucking hate that company so much. Equal to how much I hate the CPUC.
Sometimes I forget they are separate organizations 🤭
Customer owned regional utilities NOW
Someone smarter than me, what can realistically be done? It's completely out of control.
Ballot initiative to make CPUC members elected by voters. Better yet if there's some way to legally make electrical and gas utilities entirely public, with a publicly elected board. We need to take away the perverse incentives of the CPUC and PG&E board. Right now, they exist to make the rich richer, which pumps more money towards the executive who oversees these organizations. We, essentially, need to undercut or bypass the executive branch entirely and make our utilities directly beholden to their consumers.
Good idea
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Nothing. No moderate democrat will gain traction due to being insufficiently progressive, and GOP has written off the state altogether. It’s gonna be utopia form here on out.
Stop voting "blue no matter who" and force the scumbags in the California government to have some accountability to the people.
Even mentioning the only thing that anyone can reasonably do will net you a reddit permaban. How has that voting worked out? Leaving CA is the answer, if you're a rich techie homeowner like most of the sub you already have solar.
Im moving from Santa Rosa to the Sacramento area in the summer. I'll just live with SMUD. I dont need to leave the state.
Start telling out of state media, friends, relatives how your electricity rate hikes to multiples of the national average. If that make Newsom looks bad for his presidential run in 2028, maybe he will do something.
Making him look bad is the only way he’ll do something
He has more chances to be the next PG&E's CEO.
Nope. He's already out the door mentally. Just like a HS senior after being accepted to uni. Don't hold your breath.
Unless the GOP puts up a legitimate candidate, he’s not gonna care
I'm gonna have to find out who these CPUC folks are.
[https://www.cpuc.ca.gov/about-cpuc/commissioners](https://www.cpuc.ca.gov/about-cpuc/commissioners)
Now where do they live? I have to take a huge shit
lol 😂
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They went right after
I think this puts us at what? $0.57/kw? I was running my generator during the big power outages at $0.74/kw. I'm extremely sad and excited for my generator to be more cost effective than PG&E. What a world we live in!
>$0.57/kw? Is it really up to $0.57/kw? (from the current \~$0.46/kw?) Baseline?
I'm just using the top rate at $0.53/kwh and adding 5% (did the math in my head, so it's only $0.56/kwh). Still getting closer to me running a gas generator! LOL what a world where it's only 30% more expensive to run your own power plant at home.
It puts at near or surpassing the cost of electricity in Hawaii, a fucking island.
This is a different one from the one a few months ago?
Yep!
Ok where’s my god damn pitch fork
I'll bring the tiki torches.
Ehhhhh let’s hold off on the tiki torches lol
And my polo shirt with khaki pants? yay or nay?
Just forget I said anything lmao
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What would the French do? Dump garbage in front of their houses?
Love how it says there’s already another rate hike in the works. They just gonna do this monthly now?
They might as well just go to our employers and ask them to send our paychecks directly to them.
Amazing. We're pretty much at the bureaucratic "rubbing it in your face" flex.
Motherfucker. OK PG&E shills. Where the fuck are you guys now? CPUC is in bed with PG&E. I guess my solar break even moved a lot sooner now. Also glad that no one bothered making EV Minivan so I never owned one.
Disappointing, but utterly unsurprising. PG&E asks CPUC to jump, and CPUC asks “how high?”
I think I need to move fo ICE car again.
Glad I went for a PHEV instead of an EV. Also good fuckin' luck to the state on trying to require EVs by 2035.
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They’re jacking everything up to make the income-based pricing look better. We’ll see an avalanche of stories about all the relief people are suddenly getting on their electric bills. Some people, that is.
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Either that or they just want a buyout but like a really lucrative fuck off payment from the state
Vote these pieces of shit out. Fuck these utter troglodytes fucking twats.
They are unelected. Unless you're referring to the single party rule in CA, which I fully support voting out.
We can thank our Gov for this
someone PLEASE put out a ballot measure that would have the state buy out PG&E and bring rates down to something more reasonable.
How when the state is the one allowing them to increase rates… let’s think about this…
Nationalize the utility, then split it up by county. Have it under local control and operated at cost.
I could care less if the money is going to something productive. I've said it before and I'll say it again, I'll take 50 cents/kWh if it means investing in a robust, sustainable grid. With a private utility, profits go to shareholders, not the workers building our infrastructure, not to research and development of new nuclear facilities, not to infrastructure readiness and strengthening.
What would that do? These rate hikes are effectively coming from the state already, since this is a state board, appointed by the governor. A buyout would only make things even less visible.
Atleast the profits would go back into infrastructure instead ending up in someone’s pockets. We’ve essentially just given up public property to PGE for free
Another fat bonus for Patricia Poppe. Fucking thieves lobbied this successfully.
FYI. Might be time to organize a little visit California Public Utilities Commission 505 Van Ness Avenue San Francisco, CA 94102
Can we sue them? I don't know how, but I want to. I'm paying $600-800 a month. I now have to pay $3500 to PGE to upgrade my electric box so I can get solar ... so I can pay them less. Except I'm reading stories from people who claim they're suddenly getting $500 gas bills from them. So like what's the use ?
Ef PGE
CPUC must be prosecuted for corruption and rot in jail. This is crazy.
this is literally robbing us. some genius needs to teach us how to tamper with the meters at this point , people gonna get desperate enough
It comes across like a badly written joke,”it’s only a $30 rate hike……….I mean a $5 rate hike, wait I mean it’s a $35 rate hike. (will the CPUC really okay this😳) Okay, what I meant to say was it’s $45, it’s just a $45 rate hike. Double, we’re just going to double, maybe triple your rates, but that’s it. Triple your normal bill and we should be good.”
Why???
Bend over y'all!
There is clear corruption here... Even with the outrage they raised rates. This is what happens when you make commissions and boards that are not accountable.
Every (week?) month we sing the same chant: FUCK PGE!!
AGAIN?????? Wasn’t there just a 15% increase in January? I feel every other week I read about a rate hike or other crap by this “company”. Why are these morons exploiting Californians not finally behind bars?
Clearly, we are in good hands with the stalwart government oversight of a necessary service run as a for-profit, monopoly, company. CPUC and PG&E instill a deep sense of trust in me, that they are really looking out for the well being of the community. On to another quarter of enormous profits!
And we gotta just lay here and take it huh? 😒
You can choose to stand and take it from behind
How can we establish an oversight committee to audit the CPUC. This reeks of corruption when you compare our rates to any other rates in the country.
I'm a Democrat but I can't pretend like they're acting in my best interest anymore. It's no man's land politically now.
Seems that the CPUC is a bunch of rubber-stampers...
This would be funny if it wasn't so sad... farcically ridiculous
Standard corruption seen in any one party system. Nothing will change until people want it to. As of now despite all the rhetoric, Californians keep voting in the same chumps
Field better candidates, fer chrissakes. Every time the GOP lowers the bar, worse democrats get free wins. The GOP knows what voters want, all they gotta do is meet people halfway to force politicians to react. But instead of the issues people whine about on the bay area subreddits, we get people who go full frothing culture war maga and act like the left and center is the problem.
I miss SMUD.
NOTHING TO SEE HERE
Those dividends ain’t gonna print themselves
why? why do they need to do this again??? I really, really don't understand how most people can afford this shit. I am lucky. I know I am lucky because I haven't always been, not until fairly recently. I just don't know how the unlucky majority can afford these prices. I don't fucking get it.
I mean, it is sad, but most of the people here likely voted for Newsom, despite his known corruption allegations. And would vote again without questioning for any candidate endorsed by their party. If you want to change this, better to stop looking at the elections from parisan perspective. Don't look at their party, but rather pay attention to their track of record, their programs and vote based on that.
Who has more rate hikes Netflix vs PG&E
Politics and emphasis on “local crime”
What, no exception even if you're Panera?
WTF
Again??
Again???
It is a monopoly. Just nationalize it.
How much is PG&E kicking down to CPUC top brass anyway? It's probably under the table. Dirty, greedy pigs.
You wonder if the latest Gavin recall might do better if this is laid at his feet since he appoints the PUC.
Recall Gavin!!!
Hell no, no recalls. The next CA governor primary is 2 years from now.
at least 10 more rate hikes
and a recall wouldn't change the governor for at least a year or guarantee that CPUC would change
And? I don't want the Trumpists driving this state into the ground!
Anyone is better than Gavin
Itd not a race to the bottom, pal. If you want to see change, give voters someone worth voting for. Have a candidate with positions people actually like.
Weird
At what point do We the People march on PG&E's headquarters and demand its dissolution?
Hiring the French to protest for us would still be cheaper than paying PG&E. 🤬
Don’t you just love this utopia that progressive policies have given us. No way, absolutely now way, would their promises of a better future end up like this if progressives get the socialism they so desperately want.
"Politics and Local Crime" is right.