the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
Aug 19, 2024
California’s three big investor-owned utility companies, which serve about 70% of the state’s households, have doubled their rates for residential customers in the last ten years.
Electric rates in California are now second only to Hawaii among the 50 states, and about twice the national average. Not surprisingly, one out of five customers of these three utilities is behind on their electricity bills, owing 747 dollars on average.
The companies say they have to increase the rates to pay for upgrades and improvements in the grid, but most of the extra money they are charging is going to boost profits. The biggest of the three companies, Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E), made a gross profit of 20 billion dollars in 2023—20% more than the previous year. Over the five years ending in 2023, PG&E’s profit was a whopping 81 billion dollars. Southern California Edison, which is smaller than PG&E, made a gross profit of 42.6 billion dollars in the last four years.
Ratepayers have also been paying for the millions of dollars courts have ordered these companies to pay to victims of deadly wildfires. Many of the large wildfires in California started because the utilities’ aging equipment failed, or because the utilities had not cleared vegetation around their power lines. This is a result of the companies’ conscious policy of cutting down on maintenance to increase profit.
These companies are getting away with murder. They also continue to shake down their customers to add billions of dollars to their bottom line. And all this with the complicity of California’s utility regulators, who just approve all the rate increases these companies ask for.