Source: ABC7 News | By Muna Sadek

"So much of the increase today is based on overspending," Executive Director Mark Toney said. "I would say thatfor any overspending that shareholders should pay 50 percent of all cost overruns." TURN sponsored a recent bill in the State Legislature that would have required just that but Toney said PG&E ultimately killed it. "Every bill that PG&E didn’t like because it would reduce shareholder returns, it would set limits on how much ratepayers had to pay, PG&E was able to kill," Toney said.

PG&E ratepayers will see their bills go up a little over $5 a month soon, after the California Public Utilities Commission approved the increase Thursday morning. The utility says it needs the funds to recoup losses following recent storms and wildfire mitigation projects, however a number of ratepayers made public comments ahead of the vote to voice concerns about what would be the company's fourth rate hike of the year.

Source: Politico| By Blanca Begert, Tyler Katzenberger, Alex Nieves, Will McCarthy and Wes Wenteicher

“We need to fix a broken system where there are no limits to how much PG&E can request in rate increases, and no limits to how much the CPUC can grant in rate increases,” Mark Toney, executive director of The Utility Reform Network, said in a statement.

Utility and energy professionals in California and beyond are acknowledging a paradox. On the one hand, they’re looking eagerly at how advances in machine learning and artificial intelligence can help them manage the grid, predict fires and outages and respond more flexibly as energy demand grows.

Source: CBS 47 Fresno | By Hamza Fahmy

With the accumulated price hikes since the beginning of 2024, Mark Toney with the Utility Reform Network Turn says customers are seeing a nearly $50 increase in their monthly bills this year alone. He believes much of PG&E’s price hikes are due to “overspending.” “That is what is making people so upset… Instead of using a faster and cheaper way to protect their power lines — which is to install insulated polls and lines — (PG&E) wants to bury their lines at five times the cost because it produces more returns for their shareholders,” Toney said.

Starting October 1, a typical Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) customer’s monthly electric bills will increase by about $6, the utility company confirmed with KRON4. This marks the fourth PG&E price hike in 2024 alone. The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) agreed to the increase on Thursday. PG&E says the price hike is a form of damage control in response to an unexpected set of natural disasters that hit the state over the past few years. 

Source: CBS 13 Sacramento | By Shelby Reilly

"More and more people falling behind on their bills. More people than ever are now behind on their bills," said Mark Toney, executive director of The Utility Reform Network, or TURN. Toney said an increase approved in January added about $35 per month. Then, there was another increase in March of $4-5 per month followed by a temporary decrease of 9% in July.  "There's $6 we're talking about now, but guess what? Earlier this month, there was a $6 increase a month in natural gas. Now, PG&E customers pay one bill, natural gas and electricity together," he said.

As Pacific Gas and Electric customers already struggle to keep up with their bills, the California Public Utilities Commission approved the company's fourth rate increase in 2024. The increase was approved Thursday and will add about $6 per month on average to customers' bills.

Source: KTVU, Fox 2 | By Tom Vacar

Consumer advocate Mark Toney of The Utility Reform Network: “They took the side of shareholders, of Wall Street investors, who are already pocketing record breaking profits.” “PG&E has at least 10 pending requests for more rate increases sitting on the desk right now.”

Source: ABC 7 News | By Cornell Barnard

"These outrageous profits that the PG&E shareholders are pocketing are coming out of the pockets of customers," said Mark Toney who 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 2024. "I think a lot of people get upset and say, PG&E cries poor me and yet they have plenty of money," Toney said.

The California Public Utilities Commission voted unanimously to approve the hike which amounts to about $6 more on an average bill a month. In February, PG&E announced its profits for 2023 surged to over $2.2 billion - a jump of almost 25 percent.

Source: NBC Bay Area | By Ian Cull and Kris Sanchez

Mark Toney with The Utility Reform Network, or TURN, disputes that claim. "PG&E is half true by saying that some of the money increases are due to storms, but much more of the money is due to overspending on the vegetation management," Toney said. PG&E said its investments are delivering results and officials point to some relief coming in October in the form of a $55 one-time climate credit. Meanwhile, ratepayer advocates continue their push to put a limit on rate hikes. "TURN has been fighting for a cap on utility bill increases to be no more than the cost of living adjustment provided by social security," Toney said.

PG&E customers will soon see their bills go up again. The California Public Utilities Commission on Thursday approved another PG&E rate increase, which would bring bills up about $6 a month on average. The decision marks the fourth time PG&E was granted a rate increase this year. PG&E said it needs to bump up bills in order to make back what it lost during last winter’s major storms.

Source: Politico | By Tyler Katzenberger

Ashley Salas, an attorney with independent consumer advocacy nonprofit The Utility Reform Network, framed it as a public safety issue: “If someone without a social security number that’s low-income sees a wildfire, and they can’t call 911, that hurts everyone in the community.”

California is weighing a first-in-the-nation proposal that would grant some undocumented immigrants access to a government-run phone bill discount program. But the timing is a bit awkward. The proposal, scheduled for an agency vote Sept. 26, would see the state eliminate social security numbers as a requirement for California LifeLine, a program that subsidizes phone bill discounts for low-income residents. California’s Public Utilities Commission agreed to drop the requirement 10 years ago but never did.

Source: Canary Media | By Jeff St. John

We’re concerned that time is running out for the policymakers to do something,” said Mark Toney, executive director of The Utility Reform Network (TURN), a ratepayer advocacy group. In a Sunday statement, Toney accused the utilities of using their lobbying might to prevent securitization from making its way into law. There is overwhelming public support for reducing customer bills, holding utilities accountable for getting the most wildfire safety at the least cost to ratepayers, and making utility investors pay for overspending,” Toney told Canary Media, citing polling conducted by TURN

The state’s utilities have to expand their power grids to support the shift to carbon-free electricity, and they must harden those grids to reduce the risk that they’ll cause deadly wildfires. But these costly projects are the main driver of California’s sky-high and still-rising electricity rates, which have sparked an affordability crisis that threatens to derail the state’s energy transition.

Source: NBC Bay Area | By Velena Jones

The Utility Reform Network (TURN) opposes PG&E's rate hike request, arguing that it places an increased burden on ratepayers. The watchdog group noted this is the fourth rate hike this year. "PG&E customers were hit with a $34 increase at the beginning of the year," TURN Executive Director Mark Toney said. "Customers were hit with another $4 increase in March. Customers were hit with another increase of at least $6, and there is going to be more before the end of the year.” "As soon as it goes down, they come in with another request so that the bill goes back up," Toney said. "The fact is even with the decrease they are talking about, temporary decrease, customers are still paying far more today and later in the year than before the beginning of the year."

PG&E officials also noted that a temporary 9% rate decrease that began in July means that ultimately more customers should still be paying less even if the new hike is approved. Utility critics said all those reductions and credits are only temporary relief to what feels like an ongoing problem of repeated rate hikes.

Source: ABC7 News | By Cornell Barnard

"There are no limits to how much the Public Utilities Commission can grant in hikes, that's why TURN has been fighting for a cap on increases no more than the cost of living adjustment, provided by social security," said Mark Toney, Executive Director for TURN. TURN, The Utility Reform Network says, PG&E has been granted too many hikes this year alone. "We're looking at the fourth rate hike in 2024 alone, and every rate hike is like the tip of the iceberg, every hike stacks on top, that's why people are so angry," said Toney.

Your PG&E bill could jump another $6 per month before the end of the year. The price of natural gas rose in September, about $5.78 more on an average PG&E bill. The utility says a decrease in demand for gas is the reason. For months, utility watchdogs have been calling for fair utility rates but next week, the California Public Utilities Commission could grant PG&E yet another electricity rate increase of 2.7% about $6 more on an average bill.

Source: Los Angeles Times | By Hayley Smith & Melody Petersen

Mark Toney, executive director of The Utility Reform Network (TURN) — a consumer advocacy group — said the governor’s original electricity affordability plan included a measure that would have lowered the interest rates that utilities earn on capital investments such as transmission lines and power plants. Current policy encourages utilities to build expensive infrastructure because they get to recover the cost — plus annual interest that is typically 10.5% — through rates billed to customers. The original plan was aimed at reducing that rate through a financing technique called securitization. “It would create significant savings,” Toney said of the original proposal.

Amid tense, closed-door negotiations, Gov. Gavin Newsom and Democratic lawmakers have released a suite of seven bills that aim to reduce Californians’ soaring energy costs — including a controversial electricity affordability plan that critics say was substantially weakened by lobbying from utilities and will offer little real relief.

Source: Cal Matters | By Alejandro Lazo, Julie Cart, and Alejandra Reyes-Velarde

But Mark Toney, executive director of The Utility Reform Network, supported the measures, saying they are “an important first step towards affordable energy for all California residents.” He has called lowering ratepayers’ costs an urgent priority because the state could lose public support for clean energy.

Two other major bills died: SB 1272, which would have fast-tracked renewable energy projects, and SB 1003, which would have increased oversight of utilities’ wildfire costs. Only three of the six energy bills were sent to the governor:  AB 3264, which which will study transmission capacity costs, SB 1420, which streamlines hydrogen facilities, and SB 1142, which prevents power shutoffs for ratepayers with payment plans. 

Source: New York Focus | By Colin Kinniburgh

The Utility Reform Network, or TURN, California’s largest ratepayer advocacy group, gets about $5 million from utility customers, covering most of its budget. In return, the group says, it helped block more than $3 billion worth of unnecessary utility spending just last year, by proposing more affordable alternatives. “We’re talking about a fraction of a penny on the dollar that the utilities spend” on their own lawyers and consultants, said Mark Toney, TURN’s executive director. “If the net result is that rates are lower than they would have been, then it’s worth it.” Toney said it’s been a boon for California to have a large consumer advocate’s office and well-funded outside groups working toward the same goal. The state office is required to participate in every utility proceeding — several hundred a year — while TURN does about 100.

This June, for the third year in a row, the New York state legislature passed a bill aiming to level the playing field by reimbursing advocacy groups for some of their expenses from participating in rate proceedings. That could add up to millions of dollars in funding each year, paid by utilities themselves and bringing consumer groups slightly closer to what the companies spend in their own defense.

Source: ABC 7 News | By Dustin Dorsey

Mark Toney is the executive director for the Utility Reform Network and says bills have skyrocketed more than 100% in the past four years. With this latest fire data, Toney says it's fair for customers to question if the increases are worth it. "The customers are paying the price of more expensive and much slower wildfire safety," Toney said. Toney would prefer to see cheaper, faster ways of wildfire mitigation -- like insulated lines -- over seemingly constant increases with little results.

As the peak of the wildfire season quickly approaches, PG&E is working just as fast to put a stop to fires caused by its own equipment. The utility is reporting 62 fires caused by power lines this year, nearly equally the total from all of last year. To make the electric system safer, and reduce wildfire risk, sometimes exceptional costs have to be incurred. That's been PG&E's message as to why rates have increased so much in the last few years. But wildfires have not decreased.

Source: Sacramento Bee| By Ari Plachta

The Utility Reform Network (TURN) recently released polling data that found 53% of California voters support stricter government regulation of utilities and 84% support limits to how much utilities can raise prices on ratepayers per year. “The public is on our side,” said Mark Toney, executive director of the organization. “I expect policy makers will have renewed courage to do the right thing and release a package that is significant... has immediate bill reductions and can stand up to the utilities.”

It appears increasingly likely that the mad dash to finish this year’s legislative session in the state Capitol will not produce meaningful relief for Californians from their sky-high electric bills. That’s after Gov. Gavin Newsom walked back from what experts consider the most significant piece of his initial energy affordability plan, according to two sources familiar with closed-door negotiations without authorization to speak publicly. Newsom proposed to lower monthly bills through a financial process that faced opposition from major utilities and their workers. Called securitization, it would lower interest rates on utilities’ long-term capital investments and cut shareholder profits in the process. Consumer advocates called the negotiations on electric bill affordability an “epic battle” between the consumer advocates pushing for ratepayer relief and utilities backed by Wall Street.

Source: Politico | By Wes Venteicher, Camille von Kaenel, and Blanca Begert

“To us it doesn’t benefit us to have a program that benefits an extremely small percent of low-income customers by increasing bills for everyone else,” said Mark Toney, executive director of ratepayer advocacy group The Utility Reform Network.

It’s not just you. A week out from the drop-dead deadline to submit bills this legislative session, almost nobody outside a small group of negotiators knows what’s going on with two proposals that could take big swings at electricity affordability and clean energy development. Sources close to the discussions expect that if anything makes it into writing, it’ll be by Sunday, but the few in the know aren’t saying much.

Source: ABC 10 | By Devin Trubey

Mark Toney, with The Utility Reform Network (TURN), an energy advocacy group, said he’s been in briefings about the legislation and expects to see something in writing by next week. “PG&E is recording record profits at the time we are experiencing record bills,” Toney said. He would not comment on the discussions, but he and other advocacy groups wrote a letter asking for energy efficiency programs not to be cut. One of his suggestions is for the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to put caps in place on rate increases. “Currently, there are no limits on how much the utilities can ask for or how many times a year. And there on no limits on how much the CPUC can grant in a rate increase,” Toney said. TURN estimates it's led to people paying 50% more on their bills over the last three years and around around 30% more this year but that number can fluctuate by the month. PG&E says combined gas and electric bills have increased 16% this year.

With the legislative session closing at the end of the month, news that Governor Gavin Newsom could introduce legislation to curb PG&E spending and lower rates for all electric bills has been spreading. ABC10 can confirm there's some kind of bill being worked on at least. An energy advocacy group confirms they have been in meetings and heard briefings on possible legislation. An actual proposal could be seen by the end of this week or early next.

Source: The Mercury News | By Tero Sforza

“The final budget deal with the Governor represents a total capitulation to PG&E and its shareholders,” Utility Reform Network attorney Matthew Freedman told the Sacramento Bee. “This $400 million will never be paid back to the general fund, forcing taxpayers to absorb the costs.”

In something of an all-for-one, one-for-all move, customers of Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric are slated to kick in another $1.25 or so a month (Edison) and 87 cents a month (SDG&E) to extend the life of the aging Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant, run by Pacific Gas & Electric (whose customers are slated to pay $2.07 a month). Worse is that, if PG&E collects more money than it needs for Diablo, it could keep it for projects in its area, while Southern Californians would get squat.

Source: News Data | By Anne Ernst

The Utility Reform Network in a Dec. 8, 2023, filing said that PG&E’s petition for modification “arrived at a time when” TURN could only “perform a very high level review,” and that it “did not reveal any issues that seemed likely to have a material enough impact on the transactions costs, benefits, or cost-effectiveness to warrant a more in-depth inquiry.” But TURN did urge the CPUC “to make clear that any approval of the relief PG&E seeks through this petition is situation-specific, and not intended to signal that such financial restructurings will be favored in the future.

Pacific Gas & Electric received authorization to recover more than $1.2 billion in costs associated with relocating its headquarters, a move it has contended will save ratepayers money. In its 2020 application, PG&E said that selling the San Francisco building and purchasing the Lakeside building would result in a savings of $710 million to customers—or “a net present value of $752 million,” according to the current decision.