Bill Would End California Experiment with Income-Based Electric Bills

Source: Canary Media  |  By Jeff St. John

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.

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.