Opinion: It's Shameful That California Widows Need to Choose Between Electric Bills and Rent

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Last month, my electric bill from PGE was $1,425. The rent on my first apartment in Baltimore was $900 per month.

It was a nice apartment with parquet floors, two bedrooms, heat, and AC, in a good neighborhood. Now, I'm paying more to keep my lights on, and my California house below 95 degrees, than I paid for my rent!

At least I can kind of swing these insane prices. I spoke to a retired widow whose PGE bill was $800 in July. She only gets about $1,500 in monthly income from social security.

Now, she needs to spend more than half her income on her electric bill. She's not sure she can keep living here and can continue to afford her rent. It's insane.

Conversation sent to Bay Area TelegraphPhoto byBay Area Telegraph

In a state that's wealthier than most countries, it's shameful that necessities like electricity and water should cost so much.

That's doubly true because a lot of our electricity comes from nuclear and renewables. Those are the cheapest sources of electricity on the market right now.

The cost of generating power in California is so cheap these days that power companies often pay power plants to stop making more power.

Yet, as consumers, we suffer and pay thousands for our electric bills.

What gives?

The San Francisco Chronicle says "Wildfire-related costs began driving prices even higher starting in 2020, especially as PG&E — whose power lines have started numerous major fires over the past decade — dramatically ramped up spending to upgrade and strengthen its electric and gas infrastructure to adjust to a drier, hotter climate and prevent future disasters."

So our pricey electricity isn't pricey because it actually costs much of anything to generate. It's pricey because the entities supplying it have so much wildfire risk.

That feels like a problem our government should solve. Perhaps instead of wasting time passing pointless laws about the amount of water you can serve in a restaurant, they should be tackling the core issues that make living here so expensive, like a lack of investment in infrastructure.

Housing costs are tough to control, because building new housing takes a long time, and there's limited space. But hardening critical infrastructure against fires? Isn't that the exact kind of thing governments are supposed to do?

In one of the world's richest places, widows shouldn't be spending half their income to keep the lights on. Let's prioritize lowering costs for consumers, so electric service costs a bit less than a reasonable person anywhere else would spend on their monthly rent.

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