PG&E outrage: Californians are fed up with stratospheric bills

Pop quiz: Which way will your California energy bill trend over the next few years?

A. Up

B. Way up

C. Into the stratosphere

The utility, which serves 16 million people across 70,000 square miles in Northern and Central California, has long vexed customers with sky-high prices.

And it’s now expected to push rates even higher, according to the California Public Advocates Office, a consumer advocacy division of the state’s Public Utilities Commission.

The watchdog projected this week that PG&E rates will soar, over current levels, by up to $840 a year by 2030.

Ouch.

Today, the utility’s average ratepayer — and we emphasize average, as many are paying more — is out of wallet $285 per month, or about $3,420 annually. 

One Bay Area resident told The California Post that she paid the company almost $9,000 last year for gas and electric service. Another, in Fresno, said she grew so disgusted with PG&E bills that she spent $21,000 on solar panels — and invested in a backup battery.

Given this kind of misery, it’s no surprise that Californians called affordability their top issue in a recent poll by The Post.

PG&E, meanwhile, refutes the watchdog’s projections, preferring to spin or perhaps gaslight the public. The company’s CEO said in 2025: “Bills will be flat.”

Sure.

Given wildfire litigation and mitigation needs and state climate diktats, that’s beyond a stretch. 

Sacramento’s green obsession, including mandates that the state grid go carbon-free by 2045, have helped push energy rates skyward: Electricity costs in the Golden State run about double the national average. 

The climate zeal of Gov. Gavin Newsom and Co. empowers the ruling class, enriches Democrats’ allies and donors through green pork — and does almost nothing to budge global temperatures.

Add to that the state’s rampant homelessness, high taxation, lofty gasoline prices, out-of-reach housing costs, endemic fraud, rising crime, clogged roads (and more) and it’s enough to make people flee California.

PG&E ratepayers are fed up — and they’re not alone.

The costs are stratospheric. The benefits? Not so much.