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Home » Newsom wants electricity costs to be income-based

Newsom wants electricity costs to be income-based

The New Neo Posted on by

In 2022 the California legislature passed a bill with the intention of implementing “equitable” electricity charges – in other words, charge the non-poor more.

Must have seemed like a great idea to the California legislators at the time, but guess what? It turns out the people aren’t keen on it. Who would have guessed such a thing? And now even many of the Democrat lawmakers are backing away from it.

But not Gavin Newsom:

California governor Gavin Newsom is standing by the state’s soon-to-be-implemented “equitable” policy to base electricity bills on income, rather than usage, even as public and political opposition to the idea builds in the Democratic coalition.

A spokesman for the governor said on Tuesday that Newsom is looking forward to seeing a final proposal from the state’s utilities commission “that is consistent with” the 2022 law that required the agency to devise an income-based billing system.

“California must combat climate change by rapidly expanding the use of clean electricity in our vehicles and buildings, while at the same time making it more affordable for low-income Californians,” the spokesman said in a statement.

Newsom’s commitment to California’s income-based electricity billing plan followed a press conference by a group of Democratic lawmakers who want to reverse the policy, after they voted in its favor as part of a 2022 budget bill. Citing public outcry, they condemned the plan as another price hike for Californians’ astronomical energy bills that would punish conservation-minded households while also subjecting everyone to invasive income checks.

I wonder why they didn’t think of that in 2022. That’s not sarcasm on my part – well, only a bit. I really do wonder, because this is such an egregiously bad idea that it could have been confidently predicted that even in bluer-than-bluer California the consumers would not like it. Apparently they – and Newsom – are extremely out of touch.

Speaking of out of touch – or rather, untouchable [emphasis mine]:

The latest proposals vary between an extra $30 to $50 per month for Californians who aren’t poor enough to qualify for subsidies. Utility companies initially pitched charges of up to $128 for higher-income households, but walked those back after public outcry. The agency, an unelected body of regulators, is tasked with settling on a final fee and implementing it by summer.

A lot of people think Newsom will somehow replace Biden as the Democrat candidate for president in 2024. I don’t think so. He may have survived recall in California, but I don’t think he’d do well on a national level. At least, I hope not.

Comments

Newsom wants electricity costs to be income-based — 72 Comments

  1. The drumbeat never ends in California. Nothing is surprising; although much is dismaying.

    Due to age and health issues, my wife and I need to remain near our California based children. My fear is that the time will come when we are the only ones left to pay the tax bill.

    As I type, the TV stations are hysterical because it is raining. California has two seasons; drought and flood/mud slide. Somehow the forward thinking, dare I say Progressive, Political class did not foresee the need for adequate road drainage systems, nor for zoning laws that limited development on, or beneath, vulnerable hill sides. They have their minds on less mundane issues.

    Ron DeSantis destroyed Newsom in their one on one debate. It is hard to imagine that Newsom would expose himself to a national mud fight with Trump. But ambition leads to quirky decisions.

  2. It’s stupid to go about it via income level. Just like many municipal water supplies they will end up basing it on the amount used. The more income you have the more energy/water you will likely use. Kind of like our progressive income tax tables where the amount above any particular level is taxed at a higher rate.

  4. “Californians who aren’t poor enough to qualify for subsidies.” Soon to be everyone but movie “stars”, ex-Royals, and Tech workers that are still in CA.

  5. Our power company has a fund, to which it also solicits contributions, to help pay power bills for the destitute. This is a more sensible way to try to keep the power on for the poor.

  6. Might this be an instance of Robert Conquest’s 2nd Law — with colors reversed, so to speak:
    ____________________________________________________

    2. Every organisation appears to be headed by secret agents of its opponents.

    –Robert Conquest’s “Second Law of Politics”
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Conquest
    ____________________________________________________

    I frequently hear Republicans argue that Democrats must be trying to destroy the US, because their efforts are so obviously destructive.

    Could Newsom be a secret agent trying to destroy ultraliberal California? ‘Cause he’s doing such a great job….

  7. I remember reading somewhere that under Newsom California has lost some huge sum of tax revenue (on the order of 10s of billions) due to a massive exodus of wealthy and upper middle class tax payers fleeing the state over the past few years . California is now apparently facing a $68 billion budget deficit. Under such circumstances a more thoughtful Governor would be wanting to create a more inviting environment for wealthy tax payers rather than a more hostile one.

    Newsom reminds me of Justin Trudeau a little bit. They’re both a socialist morons who look good in a suits.

  8. Okay: “rubber”, meet “road”.

    Will an electric vehicle (EV) owner get a special exemption from an income-based rate hike [even if the exemption may apply only to energy used to charge the EV], on the grounds that EV energy is politically correct, or

    will an EV owner be expected to cough up the additional energy costs, with the powers that be figuring that most EV owners are reasonably well-to-do?

  9. Where does this road eventually lead? Will you have to pay your property taxes and the taxes of your two neighbors across the street? Will you have to pay for Garbage collection for your entire block? How about the gas bill? Water?

  10. California has nothing to offer anyone with sanity outside of good weather.
    Btw regarding Newsom – anyone who runs against Trump has a chance of winning.

  11. Newsom is a successful businessman. It’s a reasonable wager the utility of prices is something he understands. He’s truckling to idiots in the legislature.

  12. The past is a distant world. I was born and grew up in a California that hasn’t existed for decades. I didn’t move to Texas. I am Texas. Or maybe Alaska. The last frontier.

    Gavin Newsom’s Kali Is not the future any decent person wants. And if anyone dislikes my analogies f*** you I’ll keep defending the country

  13. Hes a rich punk whose parent sold wine to the gettys not the same thing

    Owned stock in the drilling company that went belly up in 2010 transocean

  14. Art Deco @ 2:27: “Newsom is a successful businessman.”

    Oh? I thought he was living off the family wealth amassed when his father (or grandfather) helped Pat Brown develop a close business relationship with the Indonesian ruling family for oil concessions. See Michael Shellenberger’s “Apocalypse Never.”

    Just a guess, though. Maybe he is a real entrepreneur: that would explain his ability to target and destroy whatever might make California’s economy work.

  15. Drive the legal voters out of state. Fill the state with millions of illegals who can’t vote but still are represented in congress by the 10 people left that can vote. Huge power grab I guess.

  17. The New Green… Raw Deal

    Take a knee… How green do they think people are?

    We have affordable, available, reliable, clean carbon-based energy alternatives.

  19. Each according to their needs…

    Class-disordered ideologies, nay… bray “secular” religion.

  21. Newsom reminds me of one project leader, one of the smarmiest, most untrustworthy and incompetent a********s I’ve known outside of outright criminals. I knew from the start that he would scuttle the project and he did. The STAR project for GSA.

  22. Nonapod:
    Newsom reminds me of Justin Trudeau a little bit. They’re both a socialist morons who look good in a suits.

    Look alike as well. Isn’t it funny that the biggest scum-suckers all take on the same glad-hander look? OK, not all but it’s mostly so.

  23. He beat the ‘black face of white supremacy’ they fired that woman who wrote that byline

  26. Oh? I thought he was living off the family wealth amassed when his father (or grandfather) helped Pat Brown develop a close business relationship with the Indonesian ruling family for oil concessions. See Michael Shellenberger’s “Apocalypse Never.”
    ==
    One grandfather was in the nursery business and the other was a contractor. His mother was a real estate agent. His father was a well-connected tax lawyer who worked for Getty Oil. That was helpful to the son, whose first business was founded in partnership with Gordon Getty.

  27. Most disconcerting is realizing Newsome has been re-elected twice by Calif. voters, each time by substantial margins.
    You can bet your house that if he is the demonkrat nominee, he will receive a minimum 45% of the popular vote .
    IMHO, he would have a good chance of beating Trump.

    Newsome’s policies are right in line with that of the demokrat party and he can also count 10000% on the media to promote him. Obama would be stumping for him as well.

    I paraphrase Bill O’Reilly: “the problem isn’t incompetent politicians, it’s incompetent voters.”

  28. well, maybe…but Trudeau has niftier socks….
    – – – – – – – –

    Actually, the problem is a media that doesn’t do its job; that is so inebriated with ideology, and so lacking of basic honesty that it CANNOT do its job….
    (Well, one of the problems…)

  30. Indeed, he has the jaw…

    BUT…I would very much warn against downplaying his ruthlessness when push comes to shove.
    (He uses the same playbook as “Biden”. Should one really think he plays by the rules? What he doesn’t have is “executive privilege”, not exactly, but he’s so far been pretty adept at “finding workarounds”…AND…he has the Canadian version of the Corrupt Media apparatus at his back, giving him almost total support. Almost—this Hamas business is a bit tricky to negotiate. To be sure, the CBC is a government corporation, but they’d be supporting him to the hilt even if the government budget wasn’t keeping them afloat…)

  31. My fervent hope is that Mark Steyn wins his defamation case. Michael Mann’s hockey stick graph will then be proven to be a fraud.

    Verdict expected this week.

  32. CA wants new EVs to be bidirectional, i.e., then can provide power to the grid as well as be charge by the grid.

    We will see how that plays out.

  33. I think I can speak for a lot, a huge number, of people outside California in saying that we are repulsed by the very sight of Newsom. I really can’t see him winning a national race.

  34. It already is. Those whose income is higher tend to use more, so they’ll pay more. Those whose income is lower tend to use less, so they’ll pay less.

  36. CA wants new EVs to be bidirectional,

    Don:

    That sounds insane unless new EVs will have solar collectors on the roof.

    Or … drivers with low social credit scores will discover, when they charge up, that their batteries are drained instead in favor of those with higher credit scores.

    Looking at the rationales on the web, the idea seems to be that bidirectionality will help CA counter brown-outs, thus:
    _________________________________

    …turn EVs into mobile energy storage assets, making it possible for owners to combat climate change, increase energy resilience and reduce energy costs. With this technology, the hope is that grids will not only be able to support millions more EVs but will actually be strengthened by them.

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2022/09/13/california-wants-100-electric-vehicles-by-2035-will-its-energy-grid-be-ready/
    _________________________________

    But, wait, what if I need the juice in my car for my own driving? Heaven forfend.

    The EV bandwagon never seems to consider that the energy has to come from somewhere.

  38. “Apparently they – and Newsom – are extremely out of touch.”

    When it presented as an obstacle, when have Marxists ever paid attention to the will of the people?

    Californians need to get with the program; “from each according to their means, to each according to their needs”. Of course, some animals are more equal…

  39. California has nothing to offer anyone with sanity outside of good weather.

    This week, the coast doesn’t even have good weather. So far as I know, my relatives haven’t been washed out, but one group do live in a canyon east of LA.

  40. Someday they’ll succeed darling. Can I call you that? The bastards will get me and I’ll die knowing it’s love not hate that makes us stronger

  41. huxley

    Or … drivers with low social credit scores will discover, when they charge up, that their batteries are drained instead in favor of those with higher credit scores

    Yup. Deplorables need not drive.

    If a car battery discharges into the electrical grid, that means that the operator will need to spend X minutes in recharging. EV owners will not find that double time spent in recharging to be a good idea. For better or worse, my sister recently bought an EV. Keeping the car charged up is a perpetual pain in the posterior.

    Bidirectionality is but one more example of poorly thought ideas in alternate energy. I am reminded of a letter to the editor in the local “alternate” paper that proposed having 100% of local electrical energy coming from renewable sources. That well-intentioned but unthinking & ignorant letter writer had no idea that during the big freeze of Feb 2021, wind energy production dropped way down from Texas all the way up to Minnesota. It wasn’t just Texas.

    BTW, Isabel Allende, the writer, has a photo on her website w Gavin Newsom, with her hope that Gavin Newsom becomes President. Well, he’d probably make a better President than Isabel’s cousin Salvador. 🙂

  42. “Assembling California” by John McPhee has a good chapter or two regarding flash floods and such in now urban foothills and floodplains in southern California. IIRC it also describes the interaction of wildfires that follow “wet” years, and subsequent flash floods and mud flows.

    Homeless encampments in arroyos are not a good idea …..

  43. “Homeless encampments in arroyos are not a good idea …..”
    Augean stables in a day and all that.

  44. At this point California is a one party state. Whoever is the Democrat nominee will will a position in California.

    That means the real fight is for the Democrat nomination, not for the actual election. As a consequence the real skill is internal party politicing, not campaigning to the public.

  45. RE: bi-directional EV charging.

    You can pour coffee back and forth between your mug and the coffee maker as many times as you want, PROVIDED:
    a.) you never drink any of it; and
    b.) somebody bothered to make some in the first place.

  46. I misspoke. This is the one time it isn’t billshit. Life is too precious I was thinking of 7th Fleet. 8th Air Force. Basically go to hell. I will not live under the same heaven that allows the scum that allows October 7

  47. I don’t know who died harder or in larger numbers. The airmen of the the 8th airforce or the submariners of the Pacific fleet. It seems to me a disservice to try to add it ip

  49. Thos:

    There are energy losses with every transfer and losses with the car and battery just sitting there (self discharge effect of the battery). IIRC

    But of course legislation can make reality and physics null. (sarc)

  50. No where else to put this:

    Adam Schiff, “My family came fleeing the Holocaust, in search of the American dream.”

    Here’s the problem: Both his parents were born in Massachusetts.

    Dad born 1928, 11 years before Hitler rose to power
    Mom born 1933, 6 years before Hitler.
    Holocaust began in June of 1941

    What does this say about their constituency? I am not saying it, but they sure are screaming it!

  53. 59% of energy is lost in generation.
    Another 5% is lost in T&D

    5 to 90% is lost in consumer wiring and devices.

    Generating electricity, we lost 22 quadrillion Btu from coal, natural gas, nuclear and petroleum power plants in 2013 in the U.S. – that’s more than the energy in all the gasoline we use in a given year.

    Moving electricity from plants to homes and businesses on the transmission and distribution grid, we lost 69 trillion Btu in 2013 – that’s about how much energy Americans use drying our clothes every year.

    Solar panels are fancy batteries
    They take more energy to produce than they actually make.
    so what you’re getting is the manufacturing energy back before replacing them
    right now, the first wave of replacing them is happening and landfills are filling up

    they say otherwise… but alas… its a say it over and over again… as they do NOT do an accounting from mining, through refining, etc.

    EXAMPLE:

    The amount of conventional energy used to manufacture a solar panel can vary depending on factors such as the technology used, the manufacturing processes, and the location of production. However, studies have estimated that it takes about 1-2 years of energy production by the solar panel to offset the energy used in its manufacturing.

    TRANSLATION:
    “I dont know the answer, but the answer is… ”

    Their estimate is BS… as its NOT taking the whole stream into account.
    in fact… you get inundated by industry bs so much you cant find any useful information, unless you like charts and colors and cant tell its not good

    in fact, one figure that is ALWAYS left out is the disposal and replacement figures!

  54. Late to the party: bidirectionality. om has the right of it at 747am, as does Artfldgr at 917. As soon as I read this thread my first thought was “Here we go again with another attempt to bypass the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics”. I guess there are no engineers or physicists left in California to prevent such a proposal even becoming a serious idea.

  55. ‘Not a great plan’ tony stark avengers

    I recall that Ear leader tried to pretend the arc reactor was real for his reelection campaign

  56. Physicsguy @9:36 (and Om @7:47 and Artfldodger @9:17): yes. There will be losses with each flow of electrons into the EV battery and back out. And yes, the poor schmuck who comes to his EV in the morning needing it for his commute (or maybe a trip to the ER before his child exsanguinates) will find that Gavin Newsom emptied the battery without so much as a by-your-leave. To make the bidirectionality work, then, the poor schmuck will be ordered not to unplug (and deny his kWh to the grid). If he does, his charger will alert the system and he will be fined or worse.

    Welcome to Newsom’s New World.

  57. “from each according to their means, to each according to their needs”
    That really worked out wonderfully in the late great USSR.

  58. The rich will avoid supplying the grid with energy from their vehicle batteries by plugging into electric generators!

  60. I guess there are no engineers or physicists left in California to prevent such a proposal even becoming a serious idea.

    physicsguy:

    Obviously there are lots of bright engineers and physicists in California. I don’t understand how the plan of EVs powered by the current grid passes the smell test. And adding more renewables doesn’t really get there either.

    Do you have a theory on why our betters are barreling down this road to nowhere?

    Elon Musk says flatly we need to triple the power of our grid, which is fine by me with or without EVs, but I don’t see how we get there. Unless Musk believes we will be going full-bore with nuclear power, the power that dare not speak its name, but Musk doesn’t say so directly.

  61. huxley,

    CA has a huge amount of solar panels, and roof top solar is common. The typical setup is grid tied without battery backup. The issue is that the solar panels only seem to produce energy when the sun is up.

    CA is installing battery systems but I think they also want to be able to use your EV for that purpose.

  62. Also I’ll note the propaganda I’ve seen on bidirectional EVs: “It’s something consumers want so they can make money selling power to the grid”.

    LOL.

  64. “Do you have a theory on why our betters are barreling down this road to nowhere?”

    huxley, no idea except a total disconnect with these people with actual reality. Of all places that have a past culture of exceptional engineering and physics, Germany, is discovering the limitations of the Laws of Thermo. Why Germany went down that road I can only attribute to mass hallucination

    As my favorite chief engineer, Scotty, said: “Cap’n, I canna change the laws of physics!”

  65. I’m sure we can trust all these companies to verify customer incomes and keep such information safe and secure. What’s the penalty for giving false income data? Who adjudicate disputes? Ought to be a fine DEI job generator. If he can create enough poverty the left can stay in power almost as long as the folks down in Buenos Ares.

  66. Art Deco noted that Newsom is a successful business man. Yep. And a partner in about nine of his ventures was one of the Getty heirs–I forget which.
    If Newsom entered national politics, some mean spirited soul might point out that fact. And someone might also mention that the Getty fortune was made on oil–although since Getty Oil was sold to Texaco they like to play that down; and hope none of the climate cult remembers.

  67. everything is fake in california, except the rolling brownouts, they will find out the hard way, as California descends into the kind of place, Bryan Mills doesn’t like to torture, because the current is unreliable,

    and jerry brown led to newsom and who knows what pantomine horse they would be left with Padilla, that cipher who’s atty general Borta,

  68. }}} Apparently they – and Newsom – are extremely out of touch.

    Pretty bad when you can’t even get the totally ephwit liberal idiots who remain in Cali to go along with it…

  69. As someone who implements financial systems (ERPs), I cannot imagine how this would translate into reality. This boggles the mind.

  70. If you wonder why politicians make stupid decisions, the answer is always money, and power to get money.

    Euro pols were told, clearly, that shutting down nuclear, coal and gas would create an unreliable grid. They were told that shutting them down last winter would cause citizens to freeze in the dark. They did it anyway. People died.

    Germany shut down nuclear, and continued to do so when explicitly told that the country’s industry was dying for lack of reasonably priced and reliable power. Why? A: Green party in governing coalition. People forget that Greens are former Communists who rebranded after the wall came down. B: A whole lot of retired German pols are literally on Russia’s payroll. The net result: Germany is burning lignite coal–the crappiest, dirtiest kind–to make power.

    But, Green/commies are wonderful altruistic people who only care for the poor and downtrodden. They don’t want money! Well, of course they do, let 3-house Bernie Sanders be your guide here. But they use their power as coalition members to force ruinous energy and environmental policies on the government.

    And because the press are idiots, and report dishonestly (because they know on which side of the bread their subsidies are buttered), people just stumble on. When the Dutch farmers are told that 10 percent of their farms must be shut down, well, they’re pissed, and it’s happening in Germany also. Meanwhile Russia, China and India pollute to their hearts’ content. (There are young Dutch farmers who have the money and wish to come to the US to farm. But they can’t get visas. This ain’t Biden; it goes back at least to Bush2.)

    Didja know that much of the funding for the Xcel pipeline protests came from Russia and China? Pshaw, you say. But it’s true. Smelly hippies will take money from anyone. Because America is singularly evil in the history of the world, lifelong commie Howard Zinn told them so!

  71. At least one might—finally?(!)–be able to figure out why people are leaving the state. In droves.

    And so…might one wonder whether—in the name of “historical justice”, of course—“Biden”‘s goal is to return California to Mexico (along with the other acquisitions in the Mexican-American War)? See, IF enough people leave AND enough immigrants settle…AND—let’s see now—if a referendum were to be held, then….
    …though frankly, an EO would probably be much easier.

    (To be sure, “his” goal might just be the Democrats’ usual, across-the-board destructive effort and ambition…though if one were to be TRULY CREATIVE, it could be that the GOAL is in fact to create, with Trudeau and Obrador, a North American Continental United Nations of America—or “America” for short, heh….though that’s kinda tainted…hmmm; say, how ’bout “Vespucciana”??? Nah, still too Colonialist…or maybe “Oceania”—as a tip of the hat to the man who wrote “Biden”‘s textbook—though it’ll probably end up being called “Aboriginia”…)

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