Utility Misinformation VS The Truth
Click here to let the Attorney General know you oppose SDG&E’s use of private customer databases to promote pro-utility and anti-consumer public policies.
Claim #1:
The utility tax will help working families.
The facts:
The IOU's utility tax proposal does give CARE customers a temporary $ 5-a-month reduction in their base rate. That’s $60 a year. However, that saving is not a fixed savings as the utilities want you to believe. The fixed charge and volumetric rate can increase whenever the Monopoly utilities ask the CPUC for an increase.
Additionally, SDG&E is defining working families as only those qualified for CARE/FERA. However, consumers individually making more than $40,000 a year and families making more than $70,000 are those hardest hit by the Utility Tax. We all know that, in California, poverty doesn’t end at $40,000 to $70,00 a year.
Claim #2
Greater bill stability. the fixed charge will be the same throughout the year.
The facts:
None of the Utility Tax proposals before the CPUC cap either monthly fixed charges or restructured eclectic rates. Currently, SDG&E is asking regulators to approve more than $3.6 billion in new revenue over the next four years. Greater stability is temporary at best and more like a PR ruse.
Claim #3
Increased Transparency.
The facts:
Transparency?
First off, utility rates are already transparent. The more KWs of electricity you use, the more you pay, and conversely, the less KWs you use, the less you pay. This rate policy has been California’s standard for many years as it promotes energy conservation and allows consumers the ability to reduce their rates.
Increased transparency is additionally ludicrous when one considers that the Utility Tax proposal was placed last minute into a budget trailer bill. The policy was never subject to committee meetings or public testimony. Even worse, the CPUC has denied any public input on the Utility Tax proposal. That’s hardly transparent.