Source: Chico Enterprise-Record | By Editorial Board

The Utility Reform Network, a consumer advocacy group that goes by TURN, blasted the profit figures. “TURN believes it is unacceptable for PG&E shareholders to pocket billions in profits at the expense of its customers who have seen bills skyrocket by 33% last year alone,” said Mark Toney, the group’s executive director.

Shameful. Reprehensible. Despicable. Honestly, we wish there were a stronger word to describe PG&E’s ripoff of its largely captive customer base, but we’re stuck to come up with one. The company announced Thursday it earned $2.24 billion in profits last year, an incredibly unjustifiable increase of 24.6% from 2022. Even more alarming, the report also predicted the company’s investors could anticipate even better earnings in 2024; after all, we’re not done with these rate increases. Not by a long shot. As long as there are a few extra pennies in the pocket of any customer, PG&E seems determined to find them.

Source: KRON 4 | By Dan Kerman

Mark Toney with the Utility Reform Network believes it’s time the California Public Utilities Commission stops rubber-stamping these rate hikes and does what he says is right for consumers. “The fact that PG&E is booking record profits for shareholders while ratepaying customers have record high bills is completely outrageous and unacceptable,” he said. “Turn has been calling for a cap to annual rate no higher than the cost of living adjustment that’s provided each year by social security.”

Some PG&E customers are frustrated after hearing the utility increased its profit by almost 25 percent last year, while consumers have seen their rates go up. PG&E just reported a profit for 2023 of $2.24 billion. That comes following a series of rate hikes that have made customer bills go through the roof.

Source: CBS News | By Kristine Lazar

Mark Toney with The Utility Reform Network or TURN, a consumer advocacy group, says its problematic that utilities get to decide if they are liable for damage. "The challenge is, they get to decide whether they're at fault or whether you're at fault, or whether a third party or the weather, or things out of their control," Toney said. "So what that means is, they decide whether they're at fault. I will tell you most of the time they do not find themselves at fault, not surprisingly." Toney explained small claims court is an option, with the limit for individuals at $12,500 and for businesses, it's half of that at $6,250. "It's almost not worth the effort," Toney said.

Some Long Beach small businesses are blaming SoCal Edison after a power outage and subsequent surge fried their pricey equipment, begging the question of who is responsible for it all. A dental office and veterinary clinic both lost equipment worth tens of thousands of dollars following an October 2023 power surge.

Source: Fox 2 KTVU | By Allie Rasmus

"Shareholders are pocketing money based on record rate increases," said Mark Toney, executive director of the non-profit TURN, the Utility Reform Network. Toney said PG&E is planning to ask state regulators to approve more rate hikes in the future. "PG&E has currently sitting on the desk of the California Public Utilities Commission, no less than 12 separate proposals for increases – twelve," he said. "I do think that if enough people call in to their state representatives, the governor's office, and the CPUC they will feel the pressure," said Toney. "This is the time to increase the pressure, especially now that everyone knows PG&E is turning record profits."

PG&E reports it made a $2.24 billion dollar profit last year — a 24% increase from the year before. In a call with investors, PG&E credits last year's rate increases with boosting its bottom line and said it expects to remain profitable through 2028.

Source: RedHeaded Blackbelt | By Sarah Reith

But many people testified that AT&T is not maintaining its infrastructure. And Regina Costa, telecom policy director for TURN, The Utility Reform Network, a ratepayer advocacy organization, disputed the idea of robust competition for reliable phone service. “These guys had the advantage because they had a monopoly for many, many decades,” she said in an interview before the hearing.” And they had customer support for many decades. There was a point in time where they allowed competition for local service, but very few of those companies survived.”

The Board of Supervisors chambers, the overflow room, and the courtyard at the Mendocino County government campus were packed yesterday for a highly interactive public participation hearing about two proposals from AT&T. The California Public Utilities Commission is evaluating the company’s request to relinquish its status as an eligible telecommunications carrier and to be released from its obligation to continue as the carrier of last resort, or COLR.

Source: ABC7 News | By Tim Johns

"These outrageous profits that the PG&E shareholders are pocketing are coming out of the pockets of customers," said Mark Toney. Toney works for The Utility Reform Network or TURN. He says the profits are a slap in the face to customers after substantial rate hikes at the beginning of this year. "I think a lot of people get upset and say, PG&E cries poor me and yet they have plenty of money," Toney said. And with PG&E anticipating perhaps even better profits for this year, TURN says it wants concrete action to stop bills from rising further. "We need a cap on rate increases to be no more than the cost of living adjustment provided by social security," Toney said.

The Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) announced on Thursday that it saw an almost 25 percent increase in profits for 2023. This comes after the utility company slapped customers with substantial rate hikes at the beginning of this year.

Source: The Sacramento Bee | By Ari Plachta

“When I read this, I was like, ‘Holy crap, they’re using ratepayer money,’” said Sen. Dave Min, an Orange County Democrat who authored the bill. “I’m a SoCalGas customer. They’re using my money to lobby against climate regulations, and that is really messed up.”

A state senator introduced a bill Wednesday to strengthen laws that prevent energy utilities in California from passing on the costs of political lobbying to their customers.

Source: National Public Radio: Marketplace Tech | By Lily Jamali & Rosie Hughes

Regina Costa, telecom policy director at the Utility Reform Network, an advocacy group, told Marketplace’s Lily Jamali that having a “carrier of last resort” matters. Regina Costa: It means it can’t pick and choose that it will provide service to some customers and not others. It means the service is supposed to be reliable. It means they decide they’re going to put money into this neighborhood, but not that neighborhood. It’s based on the notion that it is absolutely imperative for society that everyone in our nation has the ability to get essential communication service, for your family, for communicating with your job, for communicating with your school, for communicating with social service agencies and other governments, and especially in times of emergencies.

Before cellphones, a twisted pair of copper wires that linked our homes to the local phone company kept us all connected. Today, in much of California, telecom giant AT&T is still required to provide that basic landline phone service to anyone who wants it. Now though, AT&T is asking regulators to be relieved of that obligation. “No customer will be left without voice or 911 service,” the company says. Californians weighing in, by and large, are skeptical.

Source: The Mercury News | By George Avalos

The Utility Reform Network, a consumer advocacy group that goes by TURN, blasted the latest profit figures. “TURN believes it is unacceptable for PG&E shareholders to pocket billions in profits at the expense of its customers who have seen bills skyrocket by 33% last year alone,” said Mark Toney, the group’s executive director.

The Oakland-based power company earned an eye-popping $2.24 billion in profits last year, an increase of 24.6% from 2022, PG&E reported on Thursday. The report also predicted the utility titan’s investors can anticipate even better earnings in 2024.

Source: USA Today | By Betty Lin-Fisher

If California allows the waiver for AT&T, it becomes a slippery slope for other states, said Regina Costa, telecommunications policy director for The Utility Reform Network (TURN) in California and chair of the telecommunications committee for the National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates. “I think the nation is watching California very closely,” said Costa. “Is there a replacement that will guarantee service to all customers and guarantee reliable service?” That service needs to be available to all customers at a reasonable cost, said Costa. “Customers really get squeezed with service offerings and price increases” for alternatives, she said.

The California Public Utilities Commission is considering an application by AT&T to waive its responsibilities to be what’s called “Carrier of Last Resort,” meaning the utility has to offer the copper-wire landline service. The utility said in filings with the commission that the technology for the traditional landlines is old and demand is low. The utility and many of its peers have been petitioning state utility commissions and state legislators, asking to be relieved of the task of maintaining and offering the traditional landline service.

Source: Grist | By Akielly Hu

It’s not uncommon for state regulators to fine utility companies for charging ratepayers for lobbying efforts. In 2022, for instance, the California Public Utilities Commission fined SoCalGas $10 million for using ratepayer money to lobby against local gas bans, federal energy efficiency standards, and building electrification policies. But according to Katy Morsony, a staff attorney at the consumer advocacy group The Utility Reform Network, writing those penalties and detailed annual reporting into law will make it much easier to hold utilities accountable. Morsony also clarified that the bills wouldn’t prevent utilities from engaging in lobbying — they would simply be forced to fund that advocacy work exclusively with money from shareholders. But as households face rising energy costs, she added that any policy to prevent utilities from unlawfully extracting more money from consumers will make a tangible difference. “It’s common sense ratepayer protections,” Morsony said. “When you’re in the energy affordability crisis that we’re in, every dollar counts.”

When households in the United States pay their gas and electric bills, they’re paying for energy, the wires and pipelines it takes to get that energy into their home, and the costs of maintaining that infrastructure. But those monthly payments could also be funding efforts by utilities to lobby against climate policies. While federal law prohibits utilities from recovering lobbying expenses from customers, consumer advocates say that those rules lack teeth and aren’t sufficiently enforced. Now, states are taking the lead to ban the practice. According to the utility watchdog group Energy and Policy Institute, lawmakers in eight states, including California and Maryland, have introduced bills this year that would block utilities from charging customers for the costs of lobbying, advertising, trade association dues, and other political activities. The measures build on a growing trend in state policy: Last year, Colorado, Connecticut, and Maine became the first states in the nation to pass comprehensive laws preventing utilities from passing on the costs of lobbying to ratepayers.

Source: Marin Independent Journal | By Richard Halstead

Mark Toney, director of the Utility Reform Network, said, “I look forward to working with the author and the committee to discuss the consequences of this bill, particularly for renters and low-income homeowners who aren’t able to have solar.”

Connolly's legislation, Assembly Bill 2619, would repeal the CPUC's decision and require it to create a new rule structure based on the clean energy goals set by Senate Bill 100, which committed the state to achieving 100% clean carbon-free energy by 2045. Severin Borenstein, a business professor at the University of California, Berkeley, said the proposed legislation would subsidize residential solar operators by raising electricity prices on everyone else. "Making other ratepayers pay for it is a hugely regressive tax," Borenstein said. "Those other ratepayers are poorer than the people who are putting in solar.”

Source: Cal Matters | By Alejandra Reyes-Velarde

“Honestly, how much longer do folks have to wait?” asked Ashley Salas, an attorney with the consumer group, The Utility Reform Network (TURN). “How much longer are folks going to be harmed?” Advocates say they were not aware of any changes the utilities commission made to their application process, and regardless of the changes, residents without legal status haven’t been able to access the program. “It’s not making a meaningful difference for folks to be able to access the program,” Salas said.

It’s been 10 years since California decided to let low-income undocumented immigrants qualify for state subsidies of phone and internet services. Today the California LifeLine program — which helps 1.2 million low income households get free or discounted services — still excludes hundreds of thousands of undocumented residents because they don’t have Social Security numbers.

Source: CalMatters | By Justo Robles

Mark Toney, executive director of the consumer group the Utility Reform Network (TURN), noted that if this relief is approved, the utilities would immediately start collecting it. “PG&E shouldn’t automatically be getting this money without a field inspection to make sure they did the right work in the right locations with the right result, and they certainly should not be getting advance payment,” he said. The commission is scheduled to vote on that on March 7.

But PG&E also is seeking another overall rate increase for this year. In June PG&E requested rate hikes to reimburse the utility $688 million for wildfire safety work it had completed. State regulators earlier this month issued a counter proposal that would allow the utility giant to collect $516 million from customers. A typical residential customer’s bill would go up $4 to $6 a month during the first year, although the lowest-income customers would pay $3 or $4, according to the commission’s proposal.

Source: CBS News Sacramento | By Tori Apodaca

"This fixed charge would just shift some fixed cost out of electricity rates onto a new line item on customer's bills, a fixed charge," said Sylvie Ashford, energy and climate policy analyst at The Utility Reform Network (TURN), which advocates for ratepayers. TURN supports the fixed rate on customers' bills. Ashford said it would cut down energy use for all customers. “Because the fixed charge is removing costs from usage ($/kWh) rates, usage rates go down for all customers, “ Ashford said. “Thus, the bill impacts from the TURN/NRDC proposal are roughly $8-10 in monthly bill savings for low-income customers, and roughly $3-7 monthly bill increases for other customers, depending on energy usage.”

Low-income customers who are enrolled in the CARE program receive a 30-35% discount on their electric bill and a 20% discount on their natural gas bill and FERA customers receive an 18% discount on their electricity bill. The new tiered system for a fixed rate on your utility bill would be based on how much you make, following the existing CARE and FERA programs. The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) currently has several proposals in front of it that it believes would lower costs for lower-income families. It was passed back in 2022, but now some democratic legislators are pushing back with Assembly Bill 1999.

Source: San Francisco Chronicle | By Annie Vainshtein

“What AT&T is seeking is really, really profound,” said Regina Costa, telecommunications policy director for The Utility Reform Network. “By removing that obligation, that means there is no one that can guarantee service for a customer.”

An effort by AT&T to pull out of its obligations to offer landline services across a huge swath of California — including most of the Bay Area — has raised impassioned safety concerns among residents worried about what might happen if they lose access to their traditional wired phone lines, especially in the event of a natural disaster or other emergency. As the designated “carrier of last resort” in California, the telecommunications giant has long been required to provide basic phone services to people who want them, as required by state law. Such services are cheap, ubiquitous and heavily regulated.

Source: Los Angeles Times | By Sammy Roth

“We’re not interested in seeing anybody’s bill goes up. But it’s a zero-sum game,” said Matthew Freedman, an attorney at the Utility Reform Network, a consumer watchdog group. “Somebody is going to pay more, and somebody is going to pay less. That’s just how it works.”

Confronting the climate crisis won’t be cheap. California is trying to figure out who will pay. Under a series of proposals being considered by Gov. Gavin Newsom’s appointees to the Public Utilities Commission, the wealthy would be forced to cough up, in the form of flat fees on their monthly electric bills. But so would middle-class families. The debate has raised difficult questions of socioeconomic justice and climate progress — and prompted a group of Democratic lawmakers to try to repeal a monthly fee requirement they approved less than two years ago.

Source: Canary Media | By Jeff St. John

That’s why the Public Advocates Office, along with key environmental justice and ratepayer advocacy groups, have proposed much lower fixed charges instead. Those include a joint proposal filed by the Natural Resources Defense Council and ratepayer advocacy nonprofit The Utility Reform Network, as well as a compromise proposal from the California Environmental Justice Alliance. While they differ in details, all include much lower monthly fixed charges than what utilities are proposing, as the chart below shows.

Last month, California Assemblymembers Jacqui Irwin (D-Thousand Oaks) and Marc Berman (D-Menlo Park) introduced a bill that would overturn a provision of a state law passed in 2022 that orders the California Public Utilities Commission to study and institute an ​“income-graduated fixed charge” for customers of the state’s three big utilities. The newly introduced bill, AB 1999, would limit the CPUC to adding a fixed charge of no greater than $10 a month on customers’ bills to pay for the rising costs of maintaining the state’s utility grids, regardless of household income. That’s an amount far lower than what’s been proposed under several income-based rate plans.

Source: The Mercury News | By Ethan Baron

“The consequences are life threatening,” said Regina Costa, telecommunications policy director for consumer group The Utility Reform Network. Hundreds of thousands of households in the Bay Area and millions around California would lose landline service if the commission approves AT&T’s proposal, Costa estimated. AT&T declined to say how many households in the Bay Area or California would be affected.

Thanks to its earlier monopoly status and state law requiring voice communications for all who want them, AT&T is for large areas of California the “carrier of last resort” — the utility required to provide phone service to anyone wanting it in its service area. In its proposal to the utilities commission to escape that obligation, the company said it is seeking to stop landline service only in areas “where there is a demonstrated voice alternative.” Nearly all those commenting said they opposed the plan, citing a host of concerns, from medical crises to loss of communications during earthquakes, fires, floods and storms because cell phone infrastructure is damaged or power outages cut off internet service.

Source: Santa Cruz Sentinel | By George Avalos

PG&E customers could be paying $4 to $6 more a month for their utility service if the powerful five-member PUC panel agrees with the proposal issued by the PUC law judge, estimated Mark Toney, executive director of The Utility Reform Network, or TURN. Toney believes the PUC will agree to the proposal. He noted that the state PUC has approved four prior requests by PG&E for interim rate relief. “The chances are good that this will sail right through,” Toney said.

PG&E customers face the forbidding prospect of higher monthly bills — starting this spring — now that a state law judge has smoothed out a pathway to interim rate relief for the utility behemoth. An administrative law judge for the state Public Utilities Commission has issued a proposed decision that clears the way for the PUC commissioners to make a final decision in March that would authorize PG&E to extract more money from customers. Law Judge Camille Watts-Zagha issued the proposal.