Over the years, the so-called forward-thinking policymakers in California have achieved questionable results:
California’s high cost of electricity is already more than 80 percent higher than the national average for residential and commercial, more than 140 percent for commercial, and is projected to go even higher.
California imports more electricity than any other US state, more than twice the amount of Virginia, the second-largest importer of electricity. California typically receives between one-fifth and one-third of its electricity supply from outside the state, mostly from out-of-state coal-fired power plants.
California now has the second–highest rate of unemployment.
California has lagging job growth
California has roughly half of the nation’s homeless population
The same policymakers who have achieved the above “low” points for the residents of California are the same ones seeking zero-emission targets for the State, while concurrently attempting to shutter its only zero-emission electricity-generating plant!
California prides itself on being a good environmental steward. However, since 2014, Warren Buffett’s PacifiCorp has sold almost a billion dollars of electricity at wholesale to California, mostly from pollution-laden coal-fired electricity generation sites outside of California. PacifiCorp’s lobbying has successfully introduced corruption into California energy policies.
The independent nonprofit intervenor Californians for Green Nuclear Power’s (CGNP’s) filings link this large volume of PacifiCorp power with post-2012 sales to Southern California Edison (SCE) of “unspecified power.” (Unspecified power is a California-specific legal euphemism created in 2010 that mostly applies to out-of-state coal-fired power.)
Read the rest of this piece at America Out Loud.
Ronald Stein is an engineer, senior policy advisor on energy literacy for the Heartland Institute and CFACT, and co-author of the Pulitzer Prize nominated book "Clean Energy Exploitations."
Photo: courtesy America Out Loud.
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