| | | | |  | | By Wes Venteicher | Presented by California Hospital Association | SHIFTING THE BURDEN: California has some of the highest utility bills in the nation, and they may be getting higher — for the state’s wealthiest residents. Lawmakers last year ordered the state Public Utilities Commission to authorize utilities to charge high-income ratepayers more to help pay for the state’s renewable energy transformation and other priorities. It’s a concept not unlike the progressive income tax in the state, which makes California more reliant on higher-income earners — and the budget more vulnerable to wide swings in revenues. Those swings are behind the yawning projected deficit that Gov. Gavin Newsom and the Legislature are now working to close after last year’s record surplus. Most Californians buy electricity the way they do gasoline: Everyone pays the same price for the same amount; if you use more, you pay more. The change underway would reduce per-kilowatt-hour costs for everyone while creating a separate monthly charge that's tied to income. Demand for electricity is growing in California as the state encourages people to buy electric cars, install climate-friendly air-conditioning units and generally phase out fossil fuels — all while electric bills keep rising.
|  Wind turbines work at sunset on a wind farm near Del Rio, Texas, Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2023. | Eric Gay/AP Photo |
Baked into the per-kilowatt-hour price of electricity that everyone pays are wildfire safety costs, EV charger incentives, infrastructure upgrades and other spending not directly related to customers’ electricity usage.
Advocates say fixed charges that vary with income are more equitable and could remove barriers to buying electric vehicles. Opponents warn of unintended consequences from the billing change. The proposals vary widely. Each includes at least three income tiers, with the highest charges often kicking in at annual incomes of $100,000 or $150,000. In the utilities’ proposals, fixed charges for the lowest-income ratepayers would be around $20 per month, while the wealthiest Californians would pay a charge of roughly $80 to $120 on top of their bills for usage. A proposal from the Public Advocates Office would keep that charge below about $40 per month for those who make more than $100,000 per year and would include no charge for those with the lowest incomes. “Any time you change rate design, there are going to be winners and losers,” said Matt Baker, director of the Public Advocates Office, adding, “We’re facing a crisis, frankly, a rates crisis that needs to be addressed expeditiously.” Who will lose and win, and by how much, is in the hands of the PUC. The agency will be taking comments until June 2 and faces a decision deadline of July 2024. HAPPY TUESDAY AFTERNOON! Welcome to California Playbook PM, a POLITICO newsletter that serves as an afternoon temperature check of California politics and a look at what our policy reporters are watching. Got tips or suggestions? Shoot an email to wventeicher@politico.com or send a shout on Twitter. DMs are open!
| | | | A message from California Hospital Association: One out of every five California hospitals are at risk of closure. Low-income residents and many people of color are especially vulnerable. Medi-Cal patients need an emergency lifeline to make sure hospitals can continue to care for those in need. Services for Medi-Cal patients need protection. Take Action Now. | | | |  | WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY | | BACK IN ACTION: Sen. Dianne Feinstein has returned and so have the questions about her fitness for office. The 89-year-old senator, who was away for several months as she recovered from shingles, cast her second Senate vote of the week today amid intense scrutiny from her colleagues — and from reporters hanging on her every word for evidence that she’s no longer fit to serve. There’s a lot at stake, after all, given the evenly divided Senate and the likelihood it could swing back to Republican control in 2024. In an exchange with reporters after casting a floor vote today, Feinstein batted away a question about her return to the Senate last week by seeming to suggest that she hadn’t been gone at all. “No, I’ve been here. I’ve been voting,” she said, according to an account of the exchange in the Los Angeles Times. Nevertheless, in the Senate she remains, casting votes to advance Democratic judicial nominees, and planning — at least for now — to serve out her term.
| | ON THE BEATS | | PACK THE COURT: A group of California lawmakers today threw its weight behind one of the most divisive propositions in Washington: expanding the U.S. Supreme Court. Members of the Assembly, Senate and Sacramento City Council gathered outside the Capitol to express support for a proposal introduced this morning by Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey to add four seats to the nation’s highest court. Joining the Just Majority campaign, the group said a rollback of national abortion protections and recent reports of justices’ potential conflicts of interest demand the extraordinary change. While much of the judicial-reform discussion has centered on abortion access, California could also see some of its prized gun restrictions overturned as challenges to the restrictions unfold in federal court. The state is fighting challenges to its assault weapons ban and a limit on magazine capacity. Among the attendees Tuesday were Assemblymembers Miguel Santiago, Matt Haney, Mia Bonta, and Reggie Jones-Sawyer, along with state Sen. Scott Wiener, Councilmembers Eric Guerra and Katie Maple, and Jodi Hicks, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California. "We can't predict what will happen in the future,” Hicks said of packing the court. “But we certainly know what's happening right now, and it's not acceptable." — Lara Korte WHERE THERE’S SMOKE: It’s broadly accepted that rising temperatures caused by greenhouse gas emissions have contributed to the megafires that scorched California in recent years. Today, the Union of Concerned Scientists published a peer-reviewed study with more specifics, saying the emissions were responsible for 37 percent of the burned acreage in the last 40 years in a swath of western North America. The study builds on the growing field of “attribution science” to attempt to hold fossil fuel and cement companies directly accountable for climate change, tying the aridification due to heat-trapping emissions from the companies’ products to the fires. The study, however, doesn’t take into account other factors that have contributed to the rise of megafires, including the century-long banning of traditional burning to manage vegetation growth and the rise in sparks from people and from electric companies. — Camille von Kaenel RIVER TRIP: California’s century-old dams and other water infrastructure are showing their age, giving Newsom and environmental groups an opening to pursue fish restoration efforts that have at times irked farmers desperate for shares of the precious water. Newsom traveled to the lower Yuba River today to highlight one of the projects. Standing near a river gushing with snowmelt, he announced $30 million in state funding for a new river channel to help endangered species like Chinook salmon and sturgeon circumvent Daguerre Dam in their journeys upstream. The dam will stay in place because it holds back mining debris, but other dams are scheduled for removal, most notably on the Klamath River in Northern California but also on the Ventura River in Southern California and the Eel River in Mendocino County. The Newsom administration has allocated millions of dollars for fish restoration, but environmental groups want to see more done to reverse the continued decline of fish populations. Conservation groups today sued Pacific Gas & Electric, which owns two dams on the Eel River it plans to remove because they no longer produce hydroelectricity, to speed up the process and provide alternatives for endangered fish in the meantime. — Camille von Kaenel
| | | | A message from California Hospital Association:   | | | | | AROUND CALIFORNIA | | — “Can reparations bring Black residents back to San Francisco?” by The New York Times’ Tim Arango: [Lynette] Mackey, 63, who stayed in the city, is working toward a more likely path of securing incentives for other long-ago Black residents and their descendants to return to San Francisco. One idea is for the city to provide them with housing subsidies, access to affordable housing and stipends for moving expenses. — “A lawsuit to protect streams could take away a prime firefighting tool,” by Grist’s Max Graham: As climate change fuels more intense wildfires and threatens more people and property across the West, the lawsuit has exposed a tension between stemming those blazes and protecting lakes and streams. — “Ex-SVB CEO blames the Fed, media for bank's collapse during Senate grilling,” by the San Francisco Chronicle’s Shira Stein: The former CEO of Silicon Valley Bank on Tuesday blamed the bank’s failure on increased interest rates and a news article that fueled what he described as unfounded concerns across social media in his first public appearance since the collapse.
| | | MIXTAPE | | | — “Central Coast CA condors threatened by deadly disease. What’s being done to protect them,” John Fitzrando wrote for The Sacramento Bee — “Has the food in your fridge actually gone bad? California bill would simplify labeling,” by The Sacramento Bee’s Andew Sheeler — “After mpox outbreak, vaccinations plummeted. Now, officials are renewing the push,” by the Los Angeles Times’ Christian Martinez
| | | | A message from California Hospital Association: Medi-Cal underfunding discriminates against the most vulnerable Californians. California pays only 74 cents for every dollar it costs to care for Medi-Cal patients which puts women, children, people of color, and low-income residents at risk. The risks we face are hospital closure, bankruptcy, or diminished health care services. One hospital has already closed in 2023. Many others are shuttering services. More will follow. Please PROTECT patient care.
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